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HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 

THE BEQUEST OP 

Grenville L. Winthrop 

1943 
This book b not to be sold or exchaaged 








§y£?^^^^^B^<)H»J^.J 



ENGLISH SEAMEN 



IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



WOEKS BY JAMES ANTHONY FEOUDE. 



THE HISTOEY OF ENGLAND, from the Fall of Wolsey 
to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 12 vols, crown 8vo. ds. 6d. each. 

THE DIVOECE OF CATHEBINE OF AEAGON : the 

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London : LONGMANS, GBEEN, & CO. 



ENGLISH SEAMEN 



IN 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTUEY 



LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD 
EASTER TERMS 1893-4 



BY 



JAMES ANTHONY PEOUDE 

LATE SEOIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE 

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 



LONDON 
LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 

1895 

All rights reserved 



e 



HARVARD^ 
UNiVVRSITYl 
LIBi-;ARY 
JUN 28 1955 i 



CONTENTS 



LECTUBB rAGB 

I. THE SEA CEADLE OF THE REFORMATION . . 1 

II. JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SI<AVE TRADE . 27 

III. SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND . . 68 

IV. drake's voyage round the world . . . 79 

V. PARTIES IN THE STATE 110 

VI. THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES • . 188 

VII. ATTACK ON CADIZ 162 

Vtlt. SAILING OF THE ARMADA 186 

IX. DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 212 



ENGLISH SEAMEN 



IN THE 



SIXTEENTH CENTUEY 



LECTUEE I 

THE SEA CEADLE OF THE BEFOBMATION 

Jean Paul, the German poet, said that God had 
given to France the empire of the land, to England 
the empire of the sea, and to his own country the 
empire of the air. The world has changed since 
Jean Paul's days. The wings of France have been 
clipped ; the German Empire has become a soKd 
thing ; but England still holds her watery dominion ; 
Britannia does still rule the waves, and in this 
proud position she has spread the English race 
over the globe ; she has created the great American 
nation ; she is peopKng new Englands at the 
Antipodes ; she has made her Queen Empress of 
India ; and is in fact the very considerable pheno- 
menon in the social and pohtical world which all 
acknowledge her to be. And all this she has 

B 



ENGLISH SEAMEN 



achieved in the course of three centuries, entirely 
in consequence of her predominance as an ocean 
power. Take away her merchant fleets ; take away 
the navy that guards them : her empire will come 
to an end ; her colonies will fall off, like leaves from 
a withered tree ; and Britain will become once 
more an insignificant island in the North Sea, for 
the future students in Australian and New Zealand 
universities to discuss the fate of in their debating 
societies. 

How the EngKsh navy came to hold so extra- 
ordinary a position is worth reflecting on. Much 
has been written about it, but little, as it seems to 
me, which touches the heart of the matter. We 
are shown the power of our country growing and 
expanding. But how it grew, why, after a sleep of 
so many hundred years, the genius of our Scandina- 
vian forefathers suddenly sprang again into hf e — of 
this we are left without explanation. 

The beginning was undoubtedly the defeat of 
the Spanish Armada in 1588. Down to that time 
the sea sovereignty belonged to the Spaniards, and 
had been fairly won by them. The conquest of 
Granada had stimulated and elevated the Spanish 
character. The subjects of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
of Charles V. and PhiUp II., were extraordinary 
men, and accomphshed extraordinary things. They 
stretched the limits of the known world ; they con- 
quered Mexico and Peru; they planted their 
•colonies over the South American continent ; they 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 3 

took possession of the great West Indian islands, 
and with so firm a grasp that Cuba at least will 
never lose the mark of the hand which seized it. 
They built their cities as if for eternity. They 
spread to the Indian Ocean, and gave their 
monarch's name to the Philippines. All this they 
accompKshed in half a century, and, as it were, they 
did it with a single hand ; with the other they were 
fighting Moor& and Turks and protecting the coast 
of the Mediterranean from the corsairs of Tunis 
and Constantinople. 

They had risen on the crest of the wave, and 
with their proud Non sufficit orbis were looking for 
new worlds to conquer, at a time when the bark of 
the EngUsh water-dogs had scarcely been heard 
beyond their own fishing grounds, and the largest 
merchant vessel saihng from the port of London was 
scarce bigger than a modern coasting colher. And 
yet within the space of a single ordinary life these 
insignificant islanders had struck the sceptre from 
the Spaniards' grasp and placed the ocean crown 
on the brow of their own sovereign. How did it 
come about ? What Cadmus had sown dragons' 
teeth in the furrows of the sea for the race to spring 
from who manned the ships of Queen Ehzabeth, 
who carried the fiag of their own country round the 
globe, and challenged and fought the Spaniards on 
their own coasts and in their own harbours ? 

The Enghsh sea power was the legitimate child 
of the Keformation. It grew, as I shall show you, 

b2 



4 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

directly out of the new despised Protestantism. 
Matthew Parker and Bishop Jewel, the judicious 
Hooker himself, excellent men as they were, would 
have written and preached to small purpose without 
Sir Prancis Drake's cannon to play an accompani- 
ment to their teaching. And again, Drake's 
cannon would not have roared so loudly and so 
widely without seamen already trained in heart 
and hand to work his ships and level his artillerj^ 
It was to the superior seamanship, the superior 
quaKty of English ships and crews, that the Spani- 
ards attributed their defeat. Where did these 
ships come from ? Where and how did these 
mariners learn their trade ? Historians talk en- 
thusiastically of the national spirit of a people 
rising with a united heart to repel the invader, and 
so on. But national spirit could not extemporise 
a fleet or produce trained officers and sailors to 
match the conquerors of Lepanto. One shght 
observation I must make here at starting, and 
certainly with no invidious purpose. It has been 
said confidently, it has been repeated, I believe, by 
all modern writers, that the Spanish invasion sus- 
pended in England the quarrels of creed, and united 
Protestants and Koman Catholics in defence of 
their Queen and country. They remind us es- 
pecially that Lord Howard of EflBngham, who was 
Elizabeth's admiral, was himself a Eoman Catholic. 
But was it so ? The Earl of Arundel, the head of 
the House of Howard, was a Eoman Catholic, and 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 5 

he was in the Tower praying for the success of 
Medina Sidonia. Lord Howard of Effingham was 
no more a Roman Cathohc than — I hope I am not 
taking away their character — than the present 
Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. 
He was a Cathohc, but an Enghsh Cathohc, as 
those reverend prelates are. Roman Cathohc he 
could not possibly have been, nor anyone who on 
that great occasion was found on the side of Eliza- 
beth. A Roman Catholic is one who acknowledges 
the Roman Bishop's authority. The Pope had 
excommunicated Ehzabeth, had pronounced her 
deposed, had absolved her subjects from their 
allegiance, and forbidden them to fight for her. 
No Enghshman who fought on that great occasion 
for Enghsh liberty was, or could have been, in 
communion with Rome. Loose statements of this 
kind, lightly made, fall in with the modern humour. 
They are caught up, applauded, repeated, and pass 
unquestioned into history. It is time to correct 
them a httle. 

I have in my possession a detailed account of 
the temper of parties in England, drawn up in the 
year 1585, three years before the Armada came. 
The writer was a distinguished Jesuit. The 
account itself was prepared for the use of the Pope 
and Phihp, with a special view to the reception 
which an invading force would meet with, and it 
goes into great detail. The people of the towns — 
London, Bristol, &c. — were, he says, generally 



6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

heretics. The peers, the gentry, their tenants, and 
peasantry, who formed the immense majority of the 
population, were almost universally Catholics. But 
this writer distinguishes properly among Catholics. 
There were the ardent impassioned CathoKcs, ready 
to be confessors and martyrs, ready to rebel at the 
first opportunity, who had renounced their alle- 
giance, who desired to overthrow Elizabeth and 
put the Queen of Scots in her place. The number 
of these, he says, was daily increasing, owing to the 
exertions of the seminary priests ; and plots, he 
boasts, were being continually formed by them to 
murder the Queen. There were CathoKcs of 
another sort, who were papal at heart, but went 
with the times to save their property ; who looked 
forward to a change in the natural order of things, 
but would not stir of themselves till an invading^ 
army actually appeared. But all ahke, he insists, 
were eager for a revolution. Let the Prince of 
Parma come, and they would all join him ; and 
together these two classes of Cathohcs made three- 
fourths of the nation. 

' The only party,' he says (and this is really 
noticeable), 'the only party that would fight to 
death for the Queen, the only real friends she had, 
were the Puritans (it is the first mention of the 
name which I have found), the Puritans of London,, 
the Puritans of the sea towns.' These he admits, 
were dangerous, desperate, determined men.. 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 7 

The numbers of them, however, were providentially 
small. 

The date of this document is, as I said, 1585, 
and I believe it generally accurate. The only 
mistake is that among the AngKcan Cathohcs there 
were a few to whom their country was as dear as 
their creed — a few who were beginning to see that 
under the Act of Uniformity Catholic doctrine 
might be taught and Catholic ritual practised ; who 
adhered to the old forms of religion, but did not 
beHeve that obedience to the Pope was a necessary 
part of them. One of these was Lord Howard of 
Effingham, whom the Queen placed in his high 
command to secure the wavering fidelity of the 
peers and country gentlemen. But the force, the 
fire, the enthusiasm came (as the Jesuit saw) from 
the Puritans, from men of the same convictions as 
the Calvinists of Holland and Eochelle ; men who, 
driven from the land, took to the ocean as their 
natural home, and nursed the Eeformation in an 
ocean cradle. How the seagoing population of 
the North of Europe took so strong a Protestant 
impression it is the purpose of these lectures to 
explain. 

Henry VIII. on coming to the throne found 
England without a fleet, and without a conscious 
sense of the need of one. A few merchant hulks 
traded with Bordeaux and Cadiz and Lisbon ; hoys 
and fly-boats drifted slowly backwards and forwards 
between Antwerp and the Thames. A fishing fleet 



S ENGLISH SEAMEN 

tolerably appointed went annually to Iceland for 
cod. Local fishermen worked the North Sea and 
the Channel from Hull to Falmouth. The Chester 
people went to Kinsale for herrings and mackerel : 
but that was all — the nation had aspired to no 
more. 

Columbus had offered the New World to Henry 
VII. while the discovery was still in the air. He 
had sent his brother to England with maps and 
globes, and quotations from Plato to prove its 
existence. Henry, Hke a practical Englishman, 
treated it as a wild dream. 

The dream had come from the gate of horn. 
America was found, and the Spaniard, and not the 
Enghsh, came into first possession of it. Still, 
America was a large place, and John Cabot the 
Venetian with his son Sebastian tried Henry again. 
England might still be able to secure a slice. This 
time Henry VII. listened. Two smaU ships were 
fitted out at Bristol, crossed the Atlantic, discovered 
Newfoundland, coasted down to Florida looking for 
a passage to Cathay, but could not find one. The 
elder Cabot died ; the younger came home. The 
expedition failed, and no interest had been roused. 

With the accession of Henry VIII. a new era 
had opened — a new era in many senses. Printing 
was coming into use — Erasmus and his companions 
were shaking Europe with the new learning, 
Copernican astronomy was changing the level disk 
of the earth into a revolving globe, and turning 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 9 

dizzy the thoughts of mankind. Imagination was 
on the stretch. The reahty of things was assimaing 
proportions vaster than fancy had dreamt, and mi- 
fastening estabUshed beUef on a thousand sides. 
The young Henry was welcomed by Erasmus as 
Hkely to be the glory of the age that was opening. 
He was young, brilliant, cultivated, and ambitious. 
To what might he not aspire under the new con- 
ditions ! Henry VIH. was all that, but he was 
cautious and looked about him. Europe was full 
of wars in which he was likely to be entangled. 
His father had left the treasury well furnished. 
The young King, like a wise man, turned his first 
attention to the broad ditch, as he called the British 
Channel, which formed the natural defence of the 
realm. The opening of the Atlantic had revolution- 
ised war and seamanship. Long voyages required 
larger vessels. Henry was the first prince to see 
the place which gunpowder was going to hold in 
wars. In his first years he repaired his dockyards, 
built new ships on improved models, and imported 
Itahans to cast him new types of cannon. ' King 
Harry loved a man,' it was said, and knew a man 
when he saw one. He made acquaintance with 
sea captains at Portsmouth and Southampton. In 
some way or other he came to kno\v one Mr. 
WilHam Hawkins, of Plymouth, and held him in 
especial esteem. This Mr. Hawkins, under Henry's 
patronage, ventured down to the coast of Guinea 
and brought home gold and ivory ; crossed over to 



lo ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Brazil ; made friends with the Brazilian natives ; 
even brought back with him the king of those 
countries, who was curious to see what England 
was hke, and presented him to Henry at Whitehall. 
Another Plymouth man, Eobert Thome, again 
with Henry's help, went out to look for the North- 
west passage which Cabot had failed to find. 
Thome's ship was called the Doviinus Vohiscurrij 
a pious aspiration which, however, secured no suc- 
cess. A London man, a Master Hore, tried next. 
Master Hore, it is said, was given to cosmography,, 
was a plausible talker at scientific meetings, and so 
on. He persuaded ^ divers young lawyers ' (brief- 
less barristers, I suppose) and other gentlemen — 
altogether a hundred and twenty of them — to join 
him. They procured two vessels at Gravesend. 
They took the sacrament together before sailing. 
They apparently rehed on Providence to take care 
of them, for they made little other preparation. 
They reached Newfoundland, but their stores ran 
out, and their ships went on shore. In the land of 
fish they did not know how to use line and bait. 
They fed on roots and bilberries, and picked fish 
bones out of the ospreys' nests. At last they began 
to eat one another— careless of Master Hore, who 
told them they would go to unquenchable fire. A 
French vessel came in. They seized her with the 
food she had on board and sailed home in her, 
leaving the French crew to their fate. The poor 
French happily found means of following them. 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION ir 

They complained of their treatment, and Henry 
ordered an inquiry ; but finding, the report says, 
the great distress Master Hore's party had been in^ 
was so moved with pity, that he did not punish 
them, but out of his own purse made royal re- 
compense to the French. 

Something better than gentlemen volunteers 
was needed if naval enterprise was to come ta 
anything in England. The long wars between 
Francis I. and Charles V. brought the problem 
closer. On land the fighting was between the 
regular armies. At sea privateers were let loose 
out of French, Flemish, and Spanish ports. Enter- 
prising individuals took out letters of marque and 
went cruising to take the chance of what they 
could catch. The Channel was the chief hunting- 
ground, as being the highway between Spain and 
the Low Countries. The interval was short be- 
tween privateers and pirates. Vessels of all sorts 
passed into the business. The Scilly Isles became 
a pirate stronghold. The creeks and estuaries in 
Cork and Kerry furnished hiding-places where the 
rovers could lie with security and share their 
plunder \\dth the Irish chiefs. The disorder grew 
wilder when the divorce of Catherine of Aragon 
made Henry into the public enemy of Papal Europe. 
English traders and fishing smacks were plundered 
and sunk. Their crews went armed to defend 
themselves, and from Thames mouth to Land's 
End the Channel became the scene of desperate 



12 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

fights. The type of vessel altered to suit the new 
conditions. Life depended on speed of saihng. 
The State Papers describe squadrons of French 
or Spaniards flying about, dashing into Dart- 
mouth, Pljonouth, or Falmouth, cutting out Enghsh 
•coasters, or fighting one another. 

After Henry was excommunicated, and Ireland 
rebelled, and England itself threatened disturbance, 
the King had to look to his security. He made 
httle noise about it. But the Spanish ambassador 
reported him as silently building ships in the 
Thames and at Portsmouth. As invasion seemed 
imminent, he began with sweeping the seas of the 
looser vermin. A few swift well-armed cruisers 
pushed suddenly out of the Solent, caught and 
destroyed a pirate fleet in Mount's Bay, sent to 
the bottom some Flemish privateers in the Downs, 
and captured the Flemish admiral himself. Danger 
at home growing more menacing, and the monks 
spreading the fire which grew into the Pilgrimage 
of Grace, Henry suppressed the abbeys, sold the 
lands, and with the proceeds armed the coast with 
fortresses. ^ You threaten me,' he seemed to say 
to them, ^ that you will use the wealth our fathers 
gave you to overthrow my Government and bring 
in the invader. I will take your wealth, and I will 
use it to disappoint your treachery.' You may see 
the remnants of Henry's work in the fortresses 
anywhere along the coast from Berwick to the 

Land's End. 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 13 

Louder thundered the Vatican. In 1539 
Henry's time appeared to have come. France 
and Spain made peace, and the Pope's sentence 
was now expected to be executed by Charles or 
Francis, or both. A crowd of vessels large and 
small was collected in the Scheldt, for what purpose 
save to transport an army into England ? Scot- 
land had joined the CathoHc League. Henry fear- 
lessly appealed to the EngKsh people. Catholic 
peers and priests might conspire against him, but, 
explain it how we will, the nation was loyal to 
Henry and came to his side. The London 
merchants armed their ships in the river. From 
the seaports everywhere came armed brigantines 
and sloops. The fishermen of the West left their 
boats and nets to their wives, and the fishing was 
none the worse, for the women handled oar and 
sail and line and went to the whiting grounds, 
while their husbands had gone to fight for their 
King. Genius kindled into discovery at the call of 
the country. Mr. Fletcher of Eye (be his name 
remembered) invented a boat the like of which was 
never seen before, which would work to windward, 
with sails trimmed fore and aft, the greatest 
revolution yet made in shipbuilding. A hundred 
and fifty sail collected at Sandwich to match the 
armament in the Scheldt ; and Marillac, the French 
ambassador, reported with amazement the energy 
of King and people. 

The Catholic Powers thought better of it. This 



14 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

was not the England which Eeginald Pole had told 
them was longing for their appearance. The 
Scheldt force dispersed. Henry read Scotland a 
needed lesson. The Scots had thought to take him 
at disadvantage, and sit on his back when the 
Emperor attacked him. One morning when the 
people at Leith woke out of their sleep, they found 
an English fleet in the Eoads ; and before they had 
time to look about them, Leith was on fire and 
Edinburgh was taken. Charles V., if he had ever 
seriously thought of invading Henry, returned to 
wiser counsels, and made an alliance with him 
instead. The Pope turned to France. If the 
Emperor forsook him, the Most Christian King 
would help. He promised Francis that if he could 
win England he might keep it for himself. Francis 
resolved to try what he could do. 

Five years had passed since the gathering at 
Sandwich. It was now the summer of 1644. The 
records say that the French collected at Havre 
near 300 vessels, fighting ships, galleys, and trans- 
ports. Doubtless the numbers are far exaggerated, 
but at any rate it was the largest force ever yet 
got together to invade England, capable, if weU 
handled, of bringing Henry to his knees. The 
plan was to seize and occupy the Isle of Wight, 
destroy the EngHsh fleet, then take Portsmouth 
and Southampton, and so advance on London. 

Henry's attention to his navy had not slackened. 
He had built ship on ship. The Great Harry 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 15 

was a thousand tons, carried 700 men, and was the 
wonder of the day. There were a dozen others 
scarcely less imposing. The King called again on 
the nation, and again the nation answered. In Eng- 
land altogether there were 150,000 men in arms in 
field or garrison. In the King's fleet at Portsmouth 
there were 12,000 seamen, and the privateers of the 
West crowded up eagerly as before. It is strange, 
with the notions which we have allowed ourselves 
to form of Henry, to observe the enthusiasm with 
which the whole country, as yet undivided by 
doctrinal quarrels, ralhed a second time to defend 
liim. 

In this Portsmouth fleet lay undeveloped the 
genius of the future naval greatness of England. 
A smaU fact connected with it is worth recording. 
The watchword on board was ^ God save the King ' ; 
the answer was, ^ Long to reign over us ' : the 
earhest germ discoverable of the English National 
Anthem. 

The King had come himself to Portsmouth to 
witness the expected attack. The fleet was com- 
manded by Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of North- 
umberland. It was the middle of July. The 
French crossed from Havre unf ought with, and 
anchored in St. Helens Eoads off Brading Harbour. 
The EngKsh, being greatly inferior in numbers, lay 
waiting for theiii inside the Spit. The morning 
after the French came in was still and sultry. The 
English could not move for want of wind. The 



i6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

galleys crossed over and engaged them for two or 
three hours with some advantage. The breeze rose 
at noon ; a few fast sloops got under way and 
easily drove them back. But the same breeze 
which enabled the English to move brought a 
serious calamity with it. The Mary Bose, one of 
Lisle's finest vessels, had been under the fire of the 
galleys. Her ports had been left open, and when 
the wind sprang up, she heeled over, filled, and 
went down, carrying two hundred men along with 
her. The French saw her sink, and thought their 
own guns had done it. They hoped to follow up 
their success. At night they sent over boats to 
take soundings, and discover the way into the 
harbour. The boats reported that the sandbanks 
made the approach impossible. The French had 
no clear plan of action. They tried a landing in 
the island, but the force was too small, and failed. 
They weighed anchor and brought up again behind 
Selsea Bill, where Lisle proposed to run them 
down in the dark, taking advantage of the tide. 
But they had an enemy to deal with worse than 
Lisle, on board their own ships, which explained 
their distracted movements. Hot weather, putrid 
meat, and putrid water had prostrated whole ships' 
companies with dysentery. After a three weeks' 
ineffectual cruise they had to hasten back to Havre, 
break up, and disperse. The first great armament 
which was to have recovered England to the 
Papacy had effected nothing. Henry had once 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 17 

more shown his strength, and was left undisputed 
master of the narrow seas. 

So matters stood for what remained of Henry's 
reign. As far as he had gone, he had quarrelled 
with the Pope, and had brought the Church under 
the law. So far the country generally had gone 
with him, and there had been no violent changes 
in the administration of religion. When Henry 
died the Protector aboUshed the old creed, and 
created a new and perilous cleavage between 
Protestant and Catholic, and, while England needed 
the protection of a navy more than ever, allowed 
the fine fleet which Henry had left to fall into decay. 
The spirit of enterprise grew with the Eeformation. 
Merchant companies opened trade with Eussia and 
the Levant ; adventurous sea captains went to 
Guinea for gold. Sir Hugh Willoughby followed 
the phantom of the North-west Passage, turning 
eastward round the North Cape to look for it, and 
perished in the ice. EngUsh commerce was begin- 
ning to grow in spite of the Protector's experiments ; 
but a new and infinitely dangerous element had 
been introduced by the change of religion into the 
relations of English sailors with the Cathohc Powers, 
and especially with Spain. In their zeal to keep 
out heresy, the Spanish Government placed their 
harbours under the control of the Holy Office. 
Any vessel in which an heretical book was found 
was confiscated, and her crew carried to the Inqui- 
sition prisons. It had begun in Henry's time. 

c 



i8 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

The Inquisitors attempted to treat schism as heresy 
and arrest Englishmen in their ports. But Henry- 
spoke up stoutly to Charles V., and the Holy Office 
had been made to hold its hand. All was altered 
now. It was not necessary that a poor sailor 
should have been found teaching heresy. It was 
enough if he had an Enghsh Bible and Prayer 
Book with him in his kit ; and stories would come 
into Dartmouth or Plymouth how some lad that 
everybody knew— Bill or Jack or Tom, who had 
wife or father or mother among them, perhaps — 
had been seized hold of for no other crime, been 
flung into a dungeon, tortured, starved, set to work 
in the galleys, or burned in a fool's coat, as they 
called it, at an auto da f6 at Seville. 

The object of the Inquisition was partly politi- 
cal : it was meant to embarrass trade and make the 
people impatient of changes which produced so 
much inconvenience. The effect was exactly the 
opposite. Such accounts when brought home 
created fury. There grew up in the seagoing 
population an enthusiasm of hatred for that holy 
institution, and a passionate desire for revenge. 

The natural remedy would have been war ; but 
the division of nations was crossed by the division 
of creeds ; and each nation had allies in the heart 
of every other. If England went to war with Spain, 
Spain could encourage insurrection among the 
Catholics. If Spain or France declared war against 
England, England could help the Huguenots or the 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 19 

Holland Calvinists. All Governments were afraid 
alike of a general war of religion which might shake 
Europe in pieces. Thus individuals were left to 
their natural impulses. The Holy Ofl&ce burnt 
EngHsh or French Protestants wherever it could 
catch them. The Protestants revenged their 
injuries at their own risk and in their own way, 
and thus from Edward VI. 's time to the end of 
the century privateering came to be the special 
occupation of adventurous honourable gentlemen, 
who could serve God, their country, and themselves 
in fighting Catholics. Fleets of these dangerous 
vessels swept the Channel, Ijang in wait at Scilly, 
or even at the Azores — disowned in public by their 
own Governments while secretly countenanced, 
making war on their own account on what they 
called the enemies of God. In such a business, of 
course, there were many mere pirates engaged who 
cared neither for God nor man. But it was the 
Protestants who were specially impelled into it by 
the cruelties of the Inquisition. The Holy Office 
began the work with the autos da fe. The privateers 
robbed, burnt, and scuttled Catholic ships in 
retaUation. One fierce deed produced another, till 
right and wrong were obscured in the passion of 
reKgious hatred. Vivid pictures of these wild 
doings survive in the EngHsh and Spanish State 
Papers. Ireland was the rovers' favourite haunt. 
In the universal anarchy there, a little more or a 
little less did not signify. Notorious pirate cap- 

2 



20 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

tains were to be met in Cork or Kinsale, collecting 
stores, casting cannon, or selling their prizes — men 
of all sorts, from fanatical saints to undisguised 
rufi&ans. Here is one incident out of many to show 
the heights to which temper had risen. 

^Long peace,' says someone, addressing the 
Privy Council early in Ehzabeth's time, ' becomes 
by force of the Spanish Inquisition more hurtful 
than open war. It is the secret, determined policy 
of Spain to destroy the English fleet, pilots, 
masters and sailors, by means of the Inquisition. 
The Spanish King pretends he dares not ofiend the 
Holy House, while we in England say we may not 
proclaim war against Spain in revenge of a few. 
Not long since the Spanish Inquisition executed 
sixty persons of St. Malo, notwithstanding entreaty 
to the King of Spain to spare them. Whereupon 
the Frenchmen armed their pinnaces, lay for the 
Spaniards, took a hundred and beheaded them, 
sending the Spanish ships to the shore with their 
heads, leaving in each ship but one man to render 
the cause of the revenge. Since which time 
Spanish Inquisitors have never meddled with those 
of St. Malo.' 

A colony of Huguenot refugees had settled on 
the coast of Florida. The Spaniards heard of it, 
came from St. Domingo, burnt the town, and hanged 
every man, woman, and child, leaving an inscription 
explaining that the poor creatures had been kiUed, 
not as Frenchmen, but as heretics. Domenique de 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 21 

Gourges, of Kochelle, heard of this fine exploit of 
fanaticism, equipped a ship, and sailed across. He 
caught the Spanish garrison which had been left 
in occupation and swung them on the same trees — 
with a second scroll saying that they were dangling 
there, not as Spaniards, but as murderers. 

The genius of adventure tempted men of highest 
birth into the rovers' ranks. Sir Thomas Seymour, 
the Protector's brother and the King's uncle, was 
Lord High Admiral. In his time of ofi&ce, com- 
plaints were made by foreign merchants of ships 
and property seized at the Thames mouth. No 
redress could be had ; no restitution made ; no 
pirate was even punished, and Seymour's personal 
followers were seen suspiciously decorated with 
Spanish ornaments. It appeared at last that Sey- 
mour had himself bought the Scilly Isles, and if he 
could not have his way at Court, it was said that 
he meant to set up there as a pirate chief. 

The persecution under Mary brought in more 
respectable recruits than Seymour. The younger 
generation of the western families had grown with 
the times. If they were not theologically Protes- 
tant, they detested tyranny. They detested the 
marriage with Phihp, which threatened the inde- 
pendence of England. At home they were power- 
less, but the sons of honourable houses — Strang- 
ways, Tremaynes, Stafiords, Horseys, Carews, 
Killegrews, and Cobhams — dashed out upon the 
water to revenge the Smithfield massacres. They 



22 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

found help where it could least have been loot;ed 
for. Henry II. of France hated heresy, but he 
hated Spain worse. Sooner than see England 
absorbed in the Spanish monarchy, he forgot his 
bigotry in his politics. He furnished these young 
mutineers with ships and money and letters of 
marque. The Huguenots were their natural friends. 
With Eochelle for an arsenal, they held the mouth 
of the Channel, and harassed the communications 
between Cadiz and Antwerp. It was a wild busi- 
ness : enterprise and buccaneering sanctified by 
reUgion and hatred of cruelty ; but it was a school 
like no other for seamanship, and a school for the 
building of vessels which could outsail all others on 
the sea ; a school, too, for the training up of hardy 
men, in whose blood ran detestation of the Inquisi- 
tion and the Inquisition's master. Every other 
trade was swallowed up or coloured by privateering ; 
the merchantmen went armed, ready for any work 
that offered ; the Iceland fleet went no more in 
search of cod ; the Channel boatmen forsook nets 
and hnes and took to livelier occupations ; Mary 
was too busy burning heretics to look to the police 
of the seas ; her father's fine ships rotted in har- 
bour; her father's coast-forts were deserted or 
dismantled ; she lost Calais ; she lost the hearts of 
her people in forcing them into orthodoxy ; she left 
the seas to the privateers ; and no trade flourished, 
save what the Catholic powers called piracy. 

When EHzabeth came to the throne, the whole 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 23 

merchant navy of England engaged in lawful com- 
merce amounted to no more than 50,000 tons. 
You may see more now passing every day through 
the Gull Stream. In the service of the Crown 
there were but seven revenue cruisers in commis- 
sion, the largest 120 tons, with eight merchant 
brigs altered for fighting. In harbour there were 
still a score of large ships, but they were dismantled 
and rotting ; of artillery fit for sea work there was 
none. The men were not to be had, and, as Sir 
William Cecil said, to fit out ships without men was 
to set armour on stakes on the sea-shore. The 
mariners of England were otherwise engaged, and 
in a way which did not please Cecil. He was the 
ablest minister that Elizabeth had. He saw at 
once that on the navy the prosperity and even the 
liberty of England must eventually depend. If 
England were to remain Protestant, it was not by 
articles of religion or acts of uniformity that she 
could be saved without a fleet at the back of them. 
But he was old-fashioned. He beheved in law and 
order, and he has left a curious paper of reflections 
on the situation. The ships' companies in Henry 
VIII.'s days were recruited from the fishing smacks, 
but the Reformation itself had destroyed the fishing 
trade. In old times, Cecil said, no flesh was eaten 
on fish days. The King himself could not have 
license. Now to eat beef or mutton on fish days 
was the test of a true believer. The English Ice- 
land fishery used to supply Normandy and Brittany 



24 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

as well as England. Now it had passed to the 
French. The Chester men used to fish the Irish 
seas. Now they had left them to the Scots. The 
fishermen had taken to privateering because the 
fasts of the Church were neglected. He saw it was 
so. He recorded his own opinion that piracy, as 
he called it, was detestable^ and could not last. He 
was to find that it could last, that it was to form 
the special discipline of the generation whose busi- 
ness would be to fight the Spaniards. But he 
struggled hard against the unwelcome conclusion. 
He tried to revive lawful trade by a Navigation 
Act. He tried to restore the fisheries by Act of 
Parliament. He introduced a Bill recommending 
godly abstinence as a means to virtue, making the 
eating of meat on Fridays and Saturdays a misde- 
meanour, and adding Wednesday as a half fish-day. 
The House of Commons laughed at him as bringing 
back Popish mummeries. To please the Protes- 
tants he inserted a clause, that the statute was 
politicly meant for the increase of fishermen and 
mariners, not for any superstition in the choice of 
meats ; but it was no use. The Act was called in 
mockery ' Cecil's Fast,' and the recovery of the 
fisheries had to wait till the natural inclination of 
human stomachs for fresh whiting and salt cod 
should revive of itself. 

Events had to take their course. Seamen were 
duly provided in other ways, and such as the time 
required. Privateering suited Ehzabeth's con- 



THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFORMATION 25. 

venience, and suited her disposition. She liked 
daring and adventure. She liked men who would 
do her work without being paid for it, men whom 
she could disown when expedient ; who would 
understand her, and would not resent it. She knew 
her turn was to come when Phihp had leisure to 
deal with her, if she could not secure herself mean- 
while. Time was wanted to restore the navy. The 
privateers were a resource in the interval. They 
might be called pirates while there was formal 
peace. The name did not signify. They were 
really the armed force of the country. After the 
war broke out in the Netherlands, they had com- 
missions from the Prince of Orange. Such com- 
missions would not save them if taken by Spain, 
but it enabled them to sell their prizes, and for the 
rest they trusted to their speed and their guns. 
When EUzabeth was at war with France about 
Havre, she took the most noted of them into the 
sei*vice of the Crown. Ned Horsey became Sir 
Edward and Governor of the Isle of Wight ; 
Strangways, a Red Eover in his way, who had 
been the terror of the Spaniards, was killed before 
Rouen ; Tremayne fell at Havre, mourned over by 
Ehzabeth ; and Champernowne, one of the most 
gallant of the whole of them, was killed afterwards 
at Coligny's side at Moncontour. 

But others took their places : the wild hawks as 
thick as seagulls flashing over the waves, fair wind 
or foul, laughing at pursuit, brave, reckless, devoted, 
the crews the strangest medley : English from the 



26 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Devonshire and Cornish creeks, Huguenots from 
Kochelle ; Irish kernes with long skenes, ' desperate, 
unruly persons with no kind of mercy.' 

The Holy Office meanwhile went on in cold, 
savage resolution : the Holy Office which had begun 
the business and was the cause of it. 

A note in Cecil's hand says that in the one year 
1562 twenty-six Enghsh subjects had been burnt 
at the stake in different parts of Spain. Ten times 
as many were starving in Spanish dungeons, from 
which occasionally, by happy accident, a cry could 
be heard hke this which follows. In 1561 an 
Enghsh merchant writes from the Canaries : 

' I was taken by those of the Inquisition twenty 
months past, put into a little dark house two paces 
long, loaded with irons, without sight of sun or 
moon all that time. When I was arraigned I was 
charged that I should say our mass was as good as 
theirs ; that I said I would rather give money to 
the poor than buy Bulls of Rome with it. I was 
charged with being a subject to the Queen's grace, 
who, they said, was enemy to the faith. Antichrist, 
with other opprobrious names ; and I stood to the 
defence of the Queen's Majesty, proving the in- 
famies most untrue. Then I was put into Little 
Ease again, protesting very innocent blood to be 
demanded against the judge before Christ.' 

The innocent blood of these poor victims had 
not to wait to be avenged at the Judgment Day. 
The account was presented shortly and promptly at 
the cannon's mouth. 



27 



LECTUKE II 

JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFEICAN SLAVE TEABE 

I BEGIN this lecture with a petition addressed to 
Queen EUzabeth. Thomas Seely, a merchant of 
Bristol, hearing a Spaniard in a Spanish port utter 
foul and slanderous charges against the Queen's 
character, knocked him down. To knock a man 
down for teUing Hes about Elizabeth might be a 
breach of the peace, but it had not yet been de- 
clared heresy. The Holy Ofl&ce, however, seized 
Seely, threw him into a dungeon, and kept him 
starving there for three years, at the end of which 
he contrived to make his condition known in 
England. The Queen wrote herself to Philip to 
protest. PhiUp would not interfere. Seely re- 
mained in prison and in irons, and the result was a 
petition from his wife, in which the temper which 
was rising can be read as in letters of fire. 
Dorothy Seely demands that 'the friends of her 
Majesty's subjects so imprisoned and tormented in 
Spain may make out ships at their proper charges, 
take such Inquisitors or other Papistical subjects 
of the King of Spain as they can by sea or land, 



28 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

and retain them in prison with such torments and 
diet as her Majesty's subjects be kept with in 
Spain, and on complaint made by the Ejng to give 
such answer as is now made when her Majesty 
sues for subjects imprisoned by the Inquisition. 
Or that a Commission be granted to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and the other bishops word for word 
for foreign Papists as the Inquisitors have in Spain 
for the Protestants. So that all may know that her 
Majesty cannot and will not longer endure the 
spoils and torments of her subjects, and the Spani- 
ards shall not think this noble realm dares not 
seek revenge of such importable wrongs.' 

Elizabeth issued no such Commission as Dorothy 
Seely asked for, but she did leave her subjects to 
seek their revenge in their own way, and they 
sought it sometimes too rashly. 

In the summer of 1563 eight English merchant- 
men anchored in the roads of Gibraltar. England 
and France were then at war. A French brig came 
in after them, and brought up near. At sea, if 
they could take her, she would have been a lawful 
prize. Spaniards under similar circumstances had 
not respected the neutrality of English harbours. 
The Englishmen were perhaps in doubt what to 
do, when the officers of the Holy Office came off to 
the French ship. The sight of the black familiars 
drove the English wild. Three of them made a 
dash at the French ship, intending to sink her. 
The Inquisitors sprang into their boat, and rowed 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLA\TE TRADE 29 

for their lives. The castle guns opened, and the 
harbour police put out to interfere. The French ship, 
however, would have been taken, when unluckily 
Alvarez de Ba9an, with a Spanish squadron, came 
round into the Straits. Resistance was impossible. 
The eight EngUsh ships were captured and carried 
off to Cadiz. The EngUsh flag was trailed under 
De Bafan's stem. The crews, two hundred and 
forty men in all, were promptly condemned to the 
galleys. In defence they could but say that the 
Frenchman was an enemy, and a moderate punish- 
ment would have sufficed for a ^'ioIation of the 
harbour rules which the Spaniards themselves so 
little regarded. But the Inquisition was inexor- 
able, and the men were treated with such peculiar 
brutality that after nine months ninety only of the 
two hundred and forty were alive. 

Ferocity was answered by ferocity. Listen to 
this ! The Cobhams of Cowling Castle were Pro- 
testants by descent. Lord Cobham was famous in 
the Lollard martyrology. Thomas Cobham, one of 
the family, had taken to the sea like many of his 
friends. While cruising in the Channel he caught 
sight of a Spaniard on the way from Antwerp to 
Cadiz wdth forty prisoners on board, consigned, it 
might be supposed, to the Inquisition. They were, 
of course. Inquisition prisoners ; for other offenders 
would have been dealt with on the spot. Cobham 
chased her down into the Bay of Biscay, took 
her, scuttled her, and rescued the captives. But 



30 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

that was not enough. The captain and crew he 
sewed up in their own mainsail and flung them over- 
board. They were washed ashore dead, wrapped 
in their extraordinary winding-sheet. Cobham was 
called to account for this exploit, but he does not 
seem to have been actually punished. In a very 
short time he was out and away again at the 
old work. There were plenty with him. After 
the business at Gibraltar, Phihp's subjects w^ere 
not safe in English harbours. Jacques le Clerc, a 
noted privateer, called Pie de Palo from his wooden 
leg, chased a Spaniard into Falmouth, and was 
allowed to take her under the guns of Pendennis. 
The Governor of the castle said that he could not 
interfere, because Le Clerc had a commission from 
the Prince of Conde. It was proved that in the 
summer of 15G3 there were 400 English and 
Huguenot rovers in and about the Channel, and 
that they had taken 700 prizes between them. 
The Queen's own ships followed suit. Captain 
Cotton in the Phoenix captured an Antwerp mer- 
chantman in Flushing. The harbour-master pro- 
tested. Cotton laughed, and sailed away with his 
prize. The Regent Margaret wrote in indignation 
to Elizabeth. Such insolence, she said, was not 
to be endured. She would have Captain Cotton 
chastised as an example to all others. Elizabeth 
measured the situation more correctly than the 
Regent ; she preferred to show Philip that she was 
not afraid of him. She preferred to let her subjects 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 31 

discover for themselves that the terrible Spaniard 
before whom the world trembled was but a colossus 
stuffed with clouts. Until Philip consented to tie 
the hands of the Holy Office she did not mean to 
prevent them from taking the law into their own 
hands. 

Now and then, if occasion required, Ehzabeth 
herself would do a little privateering on her own 
account. In the next story that I have to tell she 
appears as a principal, and her great minister, Cecil, 
as an accompUce. The Duke of Alva had suc- 
ceeded Margaret as Eegent of the Netherlands, 
and was drowning heresy in its own blood. The 
Prince of Orange was making a noble fight ; but all 
went ill with him. His troops were defeated, his 
brother Louis was killed. He was still struggling, 
helped by Elizabeth's money. But the odds were 
terrible, and the only hope lay in the discontent of 
Alva's soldiers, who had not been paid their wages, 
and would not fight without them. Philip's 
finances were not flourishing, but he had borrowed 
half a million ducats from a house at Genoa for 
Alva's use. The money was to be delivered in 
bullion at Antwerp. The Channel privateers heard 
that it was coming and were on the look-out for it. 
The vessel in which it was sent took refuge in 
Plymouth, but found she had run into the enemy's 
nest. Nineteen or twenty Huguenot and English 
cruisers lay round her with commissions from 
Conde to take every Cathohc ship they met with. 



32 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Elizabeth's special friends thought and said freely 
that so rich a prize ought to fall to no one but her 
Majesty. EUzabeth thought the same, but for a 
more honourable reason. It was of the highest 
consequence that the money should not reach the 
Duke of Alva at that moment. Even Cecil said so, 
and sent the Prince of Orange word that it would 
be stopped in some way. 

But how could it decently be done ? Bishop 
Jewel reUeved the Queen's mind (if it was ever 
disturbed) on the moral side of the question. The 
bishop held that it would be meritorious in a high 
degree to intercept a treasure which was to be used 
in the murder of Protestant Christians. But the 
how was the problem. To let the privateers take 
it openly in Plymouth harbour would, it was felt, 
be a scandal. Sir Arthur ChampernowTie, the Vice- 
admiral of the West, saw the difficulty and offered 
his services. He had three vessels of his own in 
Conde's privateer fleet, under his son Henry. As 
vice-admiral he was first in command at Plymouth. 
He placed a guard on board the treasure ship, telling 
the captain it would be a discredit to the Queen's 
Government if harm befell her in English waters. 
He then wrote to Cecil. 

' If,' he said, ' it shall seem good to your honour 
that I with others shall give the attempt for her 
Majesty's use which cannot be without blood, I will 
not only take it in hand, but also receive the blame 
thereof unto myself, to the end so great a commodity 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 33 

should redound to her Grace, hoping that, after 
bitter storms of her displeasure, showed at the first to 
colour the fact, I shall find the cahn of her favour 
in such sort as I am most wilhng to hazard myself 
to serve her Majesty. Great pity it were such a rich 
booty should escape her Grace. But surely I am 
of that mind that anything taken from that 
Avicked nation is both necessary and profitable to 
our commonwealth.' 

Very shocking on Sir Arthur's part to write such 
^ letter : so many good people will think. I hope 
iihey will consider it equally shocking that King 
Thilip should have burned Enghsh sailors at the 
stake because they were loyal to the laws of their 
own country; that he was stirring war all over 
Europe to please the Pope, and thrusting the doc- 
trines of the Council of Trent down the throats of 
mankind at the sword's point. Spain and England 
might be at peace ; Eomanism and Protestantism 
were at deadly war, and war suspends the obhga- 
tions of ordinary life. Crimes the most horrible 
were held to be virtues in defence of the Catholic 
faith. The Catholics could not have the advantage 
of such indulgences without the inconveniences. 
The Protestant cause throughout Europe was one, 
and assailed as the Protestants were with such 
envenomed ferocity, they could not afford to be 
nicely scrupulous in the means they used to defend 
themselves. 

Sir Arthur Champernowne was not called on to 

D 



34 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

sacrifice himself in such peculiar fashion, and a 
better expedient was found to secure Alva's money. 
The bullion was landed and was brought to London 
by road on the plea that the seas were unsafe. It 
was carried to the Tower, and when it was once 
inside the walls it was found to remain the property 
of the Genoese until it was delivered at Antwerp. 
The Genoese agent in London was as wiUing to 
lend it to Elizabeth as to Philip, and indeed pre- 
ferred the security. Ehzabeth calmly said that 
she had herself occasion for money, and would 
accept their offer. Half of it was sent to the 
Prince of Orange ; half was spent on the Queen's 
navy. 

A] va was of course violently angry. He arrested 
every English ship in the Low Countries. He 
arrested every Enghshman that he could catch, and 
sequestered all English property. Elizabeth re- 
tahated in kind. The Spanish and Flemish 
property taken in England proved to be worth 
double what had been secured by Alva. Philip 
could not declare war. The Netherlands insurrec- 
tion was straining his resources, and with Elizabeth 
for an open enemy the whole weight of England 
would have been thrown on the side of the Prince 
of Orange. Ehzabeth herself should have declared 
war, people say, instead of condescending to 
such tricks. Perhaps so ; but also perhaps not. 
These insults, steadily maintained and unresented, 
shook the faith of inankind, and especially of her 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 35 

own sailors, in the invincibility of the Spanish 
colossus. 

I am now to turn to another side of the subject. 
The stories which I have told you show the temper 
of the time, and the atmosphere which men were 
breathing, but it will be instructive to look more 
closely at individual persons, and I will take first 
John Hawkins (afterwards Sir John), a peculiarly 
characteristic figure. 

The Hawkinses of Plymouth were a solid middle- 
class Devonshire family, who for two generations 
had taken a leading part in the business of the town. 
They still survive in the county — ^Achins we used 
to call them before school pronunciation came in, 
and so Philip wrote the name when the famous 
John began to trouble his dreams. I have already 
spoken of old William Hawkins, John's father, 
whom Henry VIII. was so fond of, and who brought 
over the BraziHan King. Old WiUiam had now 
retired and had left his place and his work to his 
son. John Hawkins may have been about thirty 
at EUzabeth's accession. He had witnessed the 
wild times of Edward VI. and Mary, but, though 
many of his friends had taken to the privateering 
business, Hawkins appears to have kept clear of 
it, and continued steadily at trade. One of these 
friends, and his contemporary, and in fact his near 
relation, was Thomas Stukely, afterwards so no- 
torious — and a word may be said of Stukely's 
career as a contrast to that of Hawkins. He was 

D 2 



36 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

a younger son of a leading county family, went to 
London to seek his fortune, and became a hanger- 
on of Sir Thomas Seymour. Doubtless he was con- 
nected with Seymour's pirating scheme at Scilly, 
and took to pirating as an occupation like other 
Western gentlemen. When Elizabeth became 
•Queen, he introduced himself at Court and amused 
her with his conceit. He meant to be a king, 
nothing less than a king. He would go to Florida, 
found an empire there, and write to the Queen as 
his dearest sister. She gave him leave to try. He 
bought a vessel of 400 tons, got 100 tall soldiers to 
join him besides the crew, and sailed from Plymouth 
in 15G3. Once out of harbour, he announced that 
the sea was to be his Florida. He went back to 
the pirate business, robbed freely, haunted Irish 
creeks, and set up an intimacy with the Ulster 
herd, Shan O'Neil. Shan and Stukely became 
bosom friends. Shan wrote to Elizabeth to re- 
commend that she should make over Ireland to 
Stukely and himself to manage, and promised, if 
she agreed, to make it such an Ireland as had never 
been seen, which they probably would. Elizabeth 
not consenting, Stukely turned Papist, transferred 
his services to the Pope and Philip, and was pre- 
paring a campaign in Ireland under the Pope's 
direction, when he was tempted to join Sebastian 
of Portugal in the African expedition, and there got 
himself killed. 

Stukely was a specimen of the foolish sort of the 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 37 

young Devonshire men ; Hawkins was exactly his 
opposite. He stuck to business, avoided pohtics, 
traded with Spanish ports without offending the 
Holy Office, and formed intimacies and connec- 
tions with the Canary Islands especially, where it 
was said ^ he grew much in love and favour with 
the people.' 

At the Canaries he naturally heard much about 
the West Indies. He was adventurous. His Cana- 
ries friends told him that negroes were great mer- 
chandise in the Spanish settlements in Espanola, 
and he himself was intimately acquainted with the 
Guinea coast, and knew how easily such a cargo 
could be obtained. 

We know to what the slave trade grew. We 
have all learnt to repent of the share which England 
had in it, and to abhor everyone whose hands were 
stained by contact with so accursed a business. 
All that may be taken for granted ; but we must 
look at the matter as it would have been repre- 
sented at the Canaries to Hawkins himself. 

The Carib races whom the Spaniards found in 
Cuba and St. Domingo had withered before them 
as if struck by a blight. Many died under the lash 
of the Spanish overseers ; many, perhaps the most, 
from the mysterious causes which have made the 
presence of civiHsation so fatal to the Eed Indian, 
the Australian, and the Maori. It is with men as 
it is with animals. The races which consent to be 
domesticated prosper and multiply. Those which 



38 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

cannot live without freedom pine like caged eagles 
or disappear like the buflEaloes of the prairies. 

Anyway, the natives perished out of the islands 
of the Caribbean Sea with a rapidity which startled 
the conquerors. The famous Bishop Las Casas 
pitied and tried to save the remnant that were left. 
The Spanish settlers required labourers for the 
plantations. On the continent of Africa were 
another race, savage in their natural state, which 
would domesticate Uke sheep and oxen, and learnt 
and improved in the white man's company. The 
negro never rose of himself out of barbarism ; as 
his fathers were, so he remained from age to age ; 
when left free, as in Liberia and in Hayti, he reverts 
to his original barbarism ; while in subjection to 
the white man he showed then, and he has shown 
since, high capacities of intellect and character. 
Such is, such was the fact. It struck Las Casas 
that if negroes could be introduced into the West 
Indian islands, the Indians might be left alone ; 
the negroes themselves would have a chance to 
rise out of their wretchedness, could be made into 
Christians, and could be saved at worst from the 
horrid fate which awaited many of them in their 
own country. 

The black races varied like other animals : 
some were gentle and timid, some were ferocious 
as wolves. The strong tyrannised over the weak, 
made slaves of their prisoners, occasionally ate 
them, and those they did not eat they sacrificed at 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 39 

what they called their customs — oflEered them up 
and cut their throats at the altars of their idols. 
These customs were the most sacred traditions of 
the negro race. They were suspended while the 
slave trade gave the prisoners a value. They 
revived when the slave trade was abohshed. When 
Lord Wolseley a few years back entered Ashantee, 
the altars were coated thick with the blood of 
hundreds of miserable beings who had been freshly 
slaughtered there. Still later similar horrid scenes 
were reported from Dahomey. Sir Eichard Burton, 
who was an old acquaintance of mine, spent two 
months with the King of Dahomey, and dilated to 
me on the benevolence and enlightenment of that 
•excellent monarch. I asked why, if the King was 
so benevolent, he did not alter the customs. 
Burton looked at me with consternation. ^ Alter 
the customs ! ' he said. ' Would you have the 
Archbishop of Canterbury alter the Liturgy ? ' 
Las Casas and those who thought as he did are not 
to be charged with infamous inhumanity if they 
proposed to buy these poor creatures from their 
captors, save them from Mumbo Jumbo, and carry 
thein to countries where they would be valuable 
property, and be at least as well cared for as the 
mules and horses. 

The experiment was tried and seemed to suc- 
ceed. The negroes who were rescued from the 
customs and were carried to the Spanish islands 
proved docile and useful. Portuguese and Spanish 



40 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

factories were established on the coast of Guinea. 
The black chiefs were glad to make money out of 
their wretched victims, and readily sold them. 
The transport over the Atlantic became a regular 
branch of business. Strict laws were made for the 
good treatment of the slaves on the plantations. 
The trade was carried on under license from the 
Government, and an import duty of thirty ducats 
per head was charged on every negro that was. 
landed. T call it an experiment. The full conse- 
quences could not be foreseen, and I cannot see 
that as an experiment it merits the censures which 
in its later developments it eventually came to 
deserve. Las Casas, who approved of it, was one 
of the most excellent of men. Our own Bishop 
Butler could give no decided opinion against negro 
slavery as it existed in his time. It is absurd to 
say that ordinary merchants and ship captains 
ought to have seen the infamy of a practice which 
Las Casas advised and Butler could not condemn. 
The Spanish and Portuguese Governments claimed, 
as I said, the control of the traffic. The Spanish 
settlers in the West Indies objected to a restriction 
which raised the price and shortened the supply. 
They considered that having estabhshed themselves 
in a new country they had a right to a voice in the 
conditions of their occupancy. It was thus that 
the Spaniards in the Canaries represented the 
matter to John Hawkins. They told him that if 
he liked to make the venture with a contraband 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 41 

cargo from Guinea, their countrymen would give 
him an enthusiastic welcome. It is evident from 
the story that neither he nor they expected that 
serious offence would be taken at Madrid. Hawkins 
at this time was entirely friendly with the Spaniards. 
It was enough if he could be assured that the 
colonists would be glad to deal with him. 

I am not crediting him with the benevolent 
purposes of Las Casas. I do not suppose Hawkins 
thought much of saving black men's souls. He 
saw only an opportunity of extending his business 
among a people with whom he was already largely 
connected. The traffic was established. It had 
the sanction of the Church, and no objection had 
been raised to it anywhere on the score of morality. 
The only question which could have presented itself 
to Hawkins was of the right of the Spanish Govern- 
ment to prevent foreigners from getting a share of 
a lucrative trade against the wishes of its subjects. 
And his friends at the Canaries certainly did not 
lead him to expect any real opposition. One 
regrets that a famous Englishman should have 
been connected with the slave trade ; but we have 
no right to heap violent censures upon him because 
he was no more enlightened than the wisest of his 
contemporaries. 

Thus, encouraged from Santa Cruz, Hawkins on 
his return to England formed an African company 
out of the leading citizens of London. Three 
vessels were fitted out, Hawkins being commander 



42 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

and part owner. The size of them is remarkable : 
the Solomon^ as the largest was called, 120 tons ; 
the Swallow^ 100 tons ; the Jonas not above 40 tons. 
This represents them as inconceivably small. They 
carried between them a hundred men, and ample 
room had to be provided besides for the blacks. 
There may have been a diflEerence in the measure- 
ment of tonnage. We ourselves have five stan- 
dards : builder's measurement, yacht measurement, 
displacement, sail area, and register measurement. 
Eegistered tonnage is far under the others : a yacht 
registered 120 tons would be called 200 in a ship- 
ping hst. However that be, the brigantines and 
sloops used by the EUzabethans on all adventurous 
expeditions were mere boats compared with what 
we should use now on such occasions. The reason 
was obvious. Success depended on speed and 
sailing power. The art of building big square- 
rigged ships which would work to windward had 
not been yet discovered, even by Mr. Fletcher of 
Eye. The fore-and-aft rig alone would enable a 
vessel to tack, as it is called, and this could only be 
used with craft of moderate tonnage. 

The expedition sailed in October 1662. They 
■called at the Canaries, where they were warmly 
entertained. They went on to Sierra Leone, where 
they collected 300 negroes. They avoided the 
Government factories, and picked them up as they 
could, some by force, some by negotiation with 
local chiefs, who were as ready to sell their subjects 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 43 

as Sancho Panza intended to be when he got his 
island. They crossed without misadventure to St. 
Domingo, where Hawkins represented that he was 
on a voyage of discovery ; that he had been driven 
out of his course and wanted food and money. He 
said he had certain slaves with him, which he asked 
permission to sell. What he had heard at the 
Canaries turned out to be exactly true. So far as 
the Governor of St. Domingo knew, Spain and Eng- 
land were at peace. Privateers had not troubled 
th6 peace of the Caribbean Sea, or dangerous here- 
tics menaced the Catholic faith there. Inquisitors 
might have been suspicious, but the Inquisition had 
not yet been estabUshed beyond the Atlantic. The 
Queen of England was his sovereign's sister-in-law, 
and the Governor saw no reason why he should 
construe his general instructions too literally. ^ The 
planters were eager to buy, and he did not wish to 
be unpopular. He allowed Hawkins to sell two out 
of his three hundred negroes, leaving the remaining 
hundred as a deposit should question be raised 
about the duty. Evidently the only doubt in the 
Governor's mind was whether the Madrid authori- 
ties would charge foreign importers on a higher 
scale. The question was new. No stranger had 
as yet attempted to trade there. 

Everyone was satisfied, except the negroes, who 
were not asked their opinion. The profits were 
enormous. A ship in the harbour was about to 
sail for Cadiz. Hawkins invested most of what he 



44 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

had made in a cargo of hides, for which, as he 
understood, there was a demand in Spain, and he 
sent them over in her in charge of one of his 
partners. The Governor gave him a testimonial for 
good conduct during his stay in the port, and with 
this and with his three vessels he returned leisurely 
to England, having, as he imagined, been splendidly 
successful. 

He was to be unpleasantly undeceived. A few 
days after he had arrived at Pl3anouth, he met the 
man whom he had sent to Cadiz with the hides for- 
lorn and empty-handed. The Inquisition, he said, 
had seized the cargo and confiscated it. An order 
had been sent to St. Domingo to forfeit the reserved 
slaves. He himself had escaped for his Ufe, as the 
familiars had been after him. 

Nothing shows more clearly how little thought 
there had been in Hawkins that his voyage would 
have given ojBfence in Spain than the astonishment 
with which he heard the news. He protested. He 
wrote to Philip. Finding entreaties useless, he 
swore vengeance ; but threats were equally ineffec- 
tual. Not a hide, not a farthing could he recover. 
The Spanish Government, terrified at the intrusion 
of English adventurers into their western paradise 
to endanger the gold fleets, or worse to endanger 
the purity of the faith, issued orders more peremp- 
tory than ever to close the ports there against all 
foreigners. Philip personally warned Sir Thomas 
Chaloner, the English ambassador, that if such 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 45 

visits were repeated, mischief would come of it. 
And Cecil, who disHked all such semi-piratical 
enterprises, and Chaloner, who was half a Spaniard 
and an old companion in arms of Charles V., en- 
treated their mistress to forbid them. 

Elizabeth, however, had her own views in such 
matters. She Uked money. She liked encou- 
raging the adventurous disposition of her subjects, 
who were fighting the State's battles at their own 
risk and cost. She saw in Philip's anger a confes- 
sion that the West Indies was his vulnerable 
point ; and that if she wished to frighten him into 
letting her alone, and to keep the Inquisition from 
burning her sailors, there was the place where 
Philip would be more sensitive. Probably, too, she 
thought that Hawkins had done nothing for which 
lie could be justly blamed. He had traded at St. 
Domingo with the Governor's consent, and confis* 
cation was sharp practice. 

This was clearly Hawkins's own view of the 
matter. He had injured no one. He had offended 
no pious ears by parading his Protestantism. He 
was not Philip's subject, and was not to be expected 
to know the instructions given by the Spanish Go- 
vernment in the remote corners of their dominions. 
If anyone was to be punished, it was not he but 
the Governor. He held that he had been robbed, 
and had a right to indemnify himself at the King's 
expense. He would go out again. He was certain 
of a cordial reception from the planters. Between 



46 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

him and them there was the friendhest understand- 
ing. His quarrel was with PhiHp, and PhiUp only. 
He meant to sell a fresh cargo of negroes, and the 
Madrid Government should go without their 30 per 
cent. duty. 

EHzabeth approved. Hawkins had opened the 
road to the West Indies. He had shown how easy 
slave smuggling was, and how profitable it was ; 
how it was also possible for the English to establish 
friendly relations \\dth the Spanish settlers in the 
West Indies, whether Phihp liked it or not. An- 
other company was formed for a second trial. 
Elizabeth took shares. Lord Pembroke took shares, 
and other members of the Council. The Queen lent 
the Jesus, a large ship of her own, of 700 tons. 
Formal instructions were given that no wrong was 
to be done to the Ejng of Spain, but what wrong 
might mean was left to the discretion of the com- 
mander. Where the planters were all eager to pur- 
chase, means of traflBc would be discovered without 
collision with the authorities. This time the 
expedition was to be on a larger scale, and a hun- 
dred soldiers were put on board to provide for con- 
tingencies. Thus furnished, Hawkins started on 
his second voyage in October 1664. The autumn 
was chosen, to avoid the extreme tropical heats. 
He touched as before to see his friends at the 
Canaries. He went on to the Eio Grande, met 
with adventures bad and good, found a chief at war 
with a neighbouring tribe, helped to capture a to\\Ti 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 47 

and take prisoners, made purchases at a Portu- 
guese factory. In this way he now secured 400 
human cattle, perhaps for a better fate than they 
would have met wTth at home, and wdth these he 
sailed off in the old direction. Near the equator 
he fell in with calms ; he was short of water, and 
feared to lose some of them ; but, as the record of 
the voyage puts it, ^ Almighty God would not suffer 
His elect to perish,' and sent a breeze which carried 
him safe to Dominica. In that wettest of islands 
he found water in plenty, and had then to consider 
what next he would do. St. Domingo, he thought, 
would be no longer safe for him ; so he struck 
across to the Spanish Main to a place called Bur- 
boroata, where he might hope that nothing would 
be known about him. In this he was mistaken. 
Philip's orders had arrived : no Englishman of any 
creed or kind was to be allowed to trade in his 
West India dominions. The settlers, however, in- 
tended to trade. They required only a display of 
force that they might pretend that they were 
yielding to compulsion. Hawkins told his old story. 
He said that he was out on the service of the Queen 
of England. He had been driven off his course by 
bad weather. He was short of supplies and had 
many men on board, who might do the town some 
mischief if they were not allowed to land peace- 
ably and buy and sell what they wanted. The 
Governor affecting to hesitate, he threw 120 
men on shore, and brought his guns to bear 



48 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

on the castle. The Governor gave way under pro- 
test. Hawkins was to be permitted to sell half his 
negroes. He said that as he had been treated so 
inhospitably he would not pay the 30 per cent. 
The King of Spain should have 7^, and no more. 
The settlers had no objection. The price would be 
the less, and with this deduction his business was 
easily finished off. He bought no more hides, and 
was paid in solid silver. 

From Burboroata he went on to Kio de la Hacha, 
where the same scene was repeated. The whole 
400 were disposed of, this time with ease and 
complete success. He had been rapid, and had 
the season still before him. Having finished his 
business, he surveyed a large part of the Caribbean 
Sea, taking soundings, noting the currents, and 
making charts of the coasts and islands. This 
done, he turned homewards, following the east 
shore of North America as far as Newfoundland. 
There he gave his crew a change of diet, with fresh 
cod from the Banks, and after eleven months' 
absence he sailed into Padstow, having lost but 
twenty men in the whole adventure, and bringing 
back 60 per cent, to the Queen and the other 
shareholders. 

Nothing succeeds like success. Hawkins's 
praises were in everyone's mouth, and in London 
he was the hero of the hour. Elizabeth received 
him at the palace. The Spanish ambassador, De 
Silva, met him there at dinner. He talked freely 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 49 

of where he had been and of what he had done, 
only keeping back the gentle violence which he 
Ihad used. He regarded this as a mere farce, since 
i)here had been no one hurt on either side. He 
l)oasted of having given the greatest satisfaction to 
the Spaniards who had dealt with him. De Silva 
could but bow, report to his master, and ask instruc- 
tions how he was to proceed. 

Phihp was frightfully disturbed. He saw in 
prospect his western subjects allying themselves 
with the English — heresy creeping in among them ; 
his gold fleets in danger, all the possibilities with 
which Ehzabeth had wished to alarm him. He 
read and re-read De Silva's letters, and opposite 
the name of Achines he wrote startled interjections 
on the margin : ' Ojo ! Ojo ! ' 

The poHtical horizon was just then favourable 
to Ehzabeth. The Queen of Scots was a prisoner 
in Loch Leven ; the Netherlands were in revolt ; 
the Huguenots were looking up in France ; and 
when Hawkins proposed a third expedition, she 
thought that she could safely allow it. She gave him 
the use of the Jesus again, with another smaller 
ship of hers, the Minion, He had two of his own 
still fit for work ; and a fifth, the Judith^ was 
brought in by his young cousin, Francis Drake, who 
was now to make his first appearance on the stage. 
I shall tell you by-and-by who and what Drake 
was. Enough to say now that he was a relation of 
Hawkins, the owner of a small smart sloop or 

E 



50 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

brigantine, and ambitious of a share in a stirring 
business. 

The Plymouth seamen were falling into dan- 
gerous contempt of Philip. While the expedition 
was fitting out, a ship of the Ejng's came into Cat- 
water with more prisoners from Flanders. She 
was flying the Castilian flag, contrary to rule, it 
was said, in Enghsh harbours. The treatment of 
the English ensign at Gibraltar had not been for- 
given, and Hawkins ordered the Spanish captain 
to strike his colours. The captain refused, and 
Hawkins instantly fired into him. In the confusion 
the prisoners escaped on board the Jesus and were 
let go. The captain sent a complaint to London, 
and Cecil — who disapproved of Hawkins and all 
his proceedings — sent down an oflScer to inquire 
into what had happened. Hawkins, confident in 
Elizabeth's protection, quietly answered that the 
Spaniard had broken the laws of the port, and 
that it was necessary to assert the Queen's 
authority. 

^ Your mariners,' said De Silva to her, ^ rob our 
subjects on the sea, trade where they are forbidden 
to go, and fire upon our ships in your harbours. 
Your preachers insult my master from their pulpits, 
and when we remonstrate we are answered with 
menaces. We have borne so far with their injuries, 
attributing them rather to temper and bad manners 
than to dehberate purpose. But, seeing that no 
redress can be had, and that the same treatment 



JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 51 

of US continues, I must consult my Sovereign's 
pleasure. For the last time, I require your Majesty 
to punish this outrage at Pljnnouth and preserve 
iihe peace between the two realms.' 

No remonstrance could seem more just till the 
other side was heard. The other side was that the 
I^ope and the Catholic powers were undertaking to 
force the Protestants of France and Flanders back 
xnnder the Papacy with fire and sword. It was no 
secret that England's turn was to follow as soon as 
hilip's hands were free. Meanwhile he had been 
ntriguing with the Queen of Scots ; he had been 
mcouraging Ireland in rebellion ; he had been per- 
ecuting Enghsh merchants and seamen, starving 
^hem to death in the Inquisition dungeons, or burn- 
ing them at the stake. The Smithfield infamies 
^were fresh in Protestant memories, and who could 
i;ell how soon the horrid work would begin again 
s,t home, if the Catholic powers could have their 
^ay? 

If the King of Spain and his Hohness at Eome 
ivould have allowed other nations to think and 
make laws for themselves, pirates and privateers 
would have disappeared off the ocean. The West 
Indies would have been left undisturbed, and 
Spanish, English, French, and Flemings would 
have lived peacefully side by side as they do now. 
But spiritual tyranny had not yet learned its lesson, 
and the ^ Beggars of the Sea ' were to be Philip's 
schoolmasters in irregular but effective fashion. 

n 2 



52 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Elizabeth listened politely to what De Si- 
said, promised to examine into his complaints, a 
allowed Hawkins to sail. 

What befell him you will hear in the n< 
lecture. 



53 



LECTUKE III 

SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 

My last lecture left Hawkins preparing to start on 
his third and, as it proved, most eventful voyage. 
I mentioned that he was joined by a young relation, 
of whom I must say a few preliminary words. 
Francis Drake was a Devonshire man, hke Hawkins 
himself and Kaleigh and Davis and Gilbert, and 
many other famous men of those days. He was 
bom at Tavistock somewhere about 1540. He 
told Camden that he was of mean extraction. He 
meant merely that he was proud of his parents and 
made no idle pretensions to noble birth. His father 
was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have 
stood well with him, for Francis Kussell, the heir 
of the earldom, was the boy's godfather. From 
him Drake took his Christian name. The Drakes 
were early converts to Protestantism. Trouble 
rising at Tavistock on the Six Articles Bill, they 
removed to Kent, where the father, probably 
through Lord Bedford's influence, was appointed a 
lay chaplain in Henry VIH.'s fleet at Chatham. 
In the next reign, when the Protestants were upper- 
most, he was ordained and became vicar of Upnor 



54 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

on the Medway. Young Francis took early to the 
water, and made acquaintance with a ship-master 
trading to the Channel ports, who took him on 
board his ship and bred him as a sailor. The boy 
distinguished himself, and his patron when he died 
left Drake his vessel in his will. For several years 
Drake stuck steadily to his coasting work, made 
money, and made a soHd reputation. His ambition 
grew with his success. The seagoing EngHsh were 
all full of Hawkins and his West Indian exploits. 
The Hawkinses and the Drakes were near relations. 
Hearing that there was to be another expedition, 
and having obtained his cousin's consent, Francis 
Drake sold his brig, bought the Judith^ a handier 
and faster vessel, and with a few stout sailors from 
the river went down to Plymouth and joined. 

De Silva had sent word to PhiHp that Hawkins 
was again going out, and preparations had been 
made to receive him. Suspecting nothing, Hawkins 
with his four consorts sailed, as before, in October 
1667. The start was ominous. He was caught 
and badly knocked about by an equinoctial in the 
Bay of Biscay. He lost his boats. The Jesus 
strained her timbers and leaked, and he so little 
liked the look of things that he even thought of 
turning back and giving up the expedition for the 
season. However, the weather mended. They put 
themselves to rights at the Canaries, picked up 
their spirits, and proceeded. The slave-catching 
was managed successfully, though with some 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 55 

increased difficulty. The cargo with equal success 
ivas disposed of at the Spanish settlements. At 
one place the planters came off in their boats at 
night to buy. At Eio de la Hacha, where the most 
imperative orders had been sent to forbid his 
admittance, Hawkins landed a force as before and 
took possession of the town, of course with the 
connivance of the settlers. At Carthagena he was 
similarly ordered off, and as Carthagena was 
strongly fortified he did not venture to meddle with 
it. But elsewhere he found ample markets for his 
wares. He sold all his blacks. By this and by 
other dealings he had collected what is described 
as a vast treasure of gold, silver, and jewels. The 
hurricane season was approaching, and he made the 
best of his way homewards with his spoils, in the 
fear of being overtaken by it. Unluckily for him, 
he had lingered too long. He had passed the west 
point of Cuba and was working up the back of the 
island when a hurricane came down on him. The 
gale lasted four days. The ships' bottoms were 
foul and they could make no way. Spars were lost 
and rigging carried away. The Jesus^ which had 
not been seaworthy all along, leaked worse than 
ever and lost her rudder. Hawkins looked for some 
port in Florida, but found the coast shallow and 
dangerous, and was at last obliged to run for 
San Juan de Ulloa, at the bottom of the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

San Juan de Ulloa is a few miles only from 



56 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Vera Cruz. It was at that time the chief port of 
Mexico, through which all the traffic passed between 
the colony and the mother-country, and was thus a 
place of some consequence. It stands on a small 
bay facing towards the north. Across the mouth 
of this bay Hes a narrow ridge of sand and shingle, 
half a mile long, which acts as a natural break- 
water and forms the harbour. This ridge, or island 
as it was called, was uninhabited, but it had been 
faced on the inner front by a wall. The water was 
deep alongside, and vessels could thus He in perfect 
security, secured by their cables to rings let into 
the masonry. 

The prevailing wind was from the north, bringing 
in a heavy surf on the back of the island. There 
was an opening at both ends, but only one available 
for vessels of large draught. In this the channel 
was narrow, and a battery at the end of the break- 
water would completely command it. The town 
stood on the opposite side of the bay. 

Into a Spanish port thus constructed Hawkins 
entered with his battered squadron on September 
16, 1568. He could not have felt entirely easy. But 
he probably thought that he had no ill-will to fear 
from the inhabitants generally, and that the Spanish 
authorities would not be strong enough to meddle 
with him. His ill star had brought him there at a 
time when Alvarez de Ba^an, the same officer who 
had destroyed the English ships at Gibraltar, was 
daily expected from Spain — sent by Philip, as it 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 57 

proved, specially to look for him. Haw kins, when 
he appeared outside, had been mistaken for the 
Spanish admiral, and it was under this impression 
that he had been allowed to enter. The error was 
quickly discovered on both sides. 

Though still ignorant that he was himself De 
Ba9an's particular object, yet De Ba9an was the 
last ofl&cer whom in his crippled condition he would 
have cared to encounter. Several Spanish mer- 
chantmen were in the port richly loaded : with 
these of course he did not meddle, though, if rein- 
forced, they might perhaps meddle with him. As 
his best resource he despatched a courier on the 
instant to Mexico to inform the Viceroy of his 
arrival, to say that he had an Enghsh squadron 
with him ; that he had been driven in by stress of 
weather and need of repairs ; that the Queen was 
an ally of the King of Spain ; and that, as he 
understood a Spanish fleet was likely soon to arrive, 
he begged the Viceroy to make arrangements to 
prevent disputes. 

As yet, as I said in the last lecture, there was 
no Inquisition in Mexico. It was established there 
three years later, for the special benefit of the Eng-. 
lish. But so far there was no ill-will towards the 
Enghsh — rather the contrary. Hawkins had hurt 
no one, and the negro trading had been eminently 
popular. The Viceroy might perhaps have connived 
at Hawkins's escape, but again by ill-fortune he 
was himself under orders of recall, and his sue- 



58 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

cesser was coming out in this particular fleet with 
De Bagan. 

Had he been well disposed and free to act it 
would still have been too late, for the very next 
morning, September 17, De Ba9an was off the har- 
bour mouth with thirteen heavily armed galleons 
and frigates. The smallest of them carried pro- 
bably 200 men, and the odds were now tremendous. 
Hawkins's vessels lay ranged along the inner bank 
or wall of the island. He instantly occupied the 
island itself and mounted guns at the point cover- 
ing the way in. He then sent a boat off to De 
Bafan to say that he was an Enghshman, that he 
was in possession of the port, and must forbid the 
entrance of the Spanish fleet till he was assured 
that there was to be no violence. It was a strong 
measure to shut a Spanish admiral out of a Spanish 
port in a time of profound peace. Still, the way in 
was difficult, and could not be easily forced if 
resolutely defended. The northerly wind was 
rising ; if it blew into a gale the Spaniards would 
be on a lee shore. Under desperate circumstances, 
desperate things will be done. Hawkins in his 
subsequent report thus explains his dilemma : — 

' I was in two difficulties. Either I must keep 
them out of the port, which with God's grace I 
could easily have done, in which case with a 
northerly wind rising they would have been 
wrecked, and I should have been answerable ; or I 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 59 

must risk their playing false, which on the whole 
I preferred to do.' 

The northerly gale it appears did not rise, or 
the English commander might have preferred the 
first alternative. Three days passed in negotiation. 
De Ba9an and Don Enriquez, the new Viceroy, were 
naturally anxious to get into shelter out of a 
dangerous position, and were equally desirous not 
to promise any more than was absolutely necessary. 
The final agreement was that De Ba9an and the 
fleet should enter without opposition. Hawkins 
might stay till he had repaired his damages, and 
buy and sell what he wanted ; and further, as long 
as they remained the English were to keep 
possession of the island. This article, Hawkins 
says, was long resisted, but was consented to at 
last. It was absolutely necessary, for with the 
island in their hands, the Spaniards had only to 
cut the English cables, and they would have driven 
ashore across the harbour. 

The treaty so drawn was formally signed. 
Hostages were given on both sides, and De Ba9an 
came in. The two fleets were moored as far apart 
from each other as the size of the port would allow. 
Courtesies were exchanged, and for two days all 
went well. It is likely that the Viceroy and the ad- 
miral did not at first know that it was the very man 
whom they had been sent out to sink or capture 
who was lying so close to them. When they did 
know it they may have looked on him as a pirate, 



6o ENGLISH SEAMEN 

with whom, as with heretics, there was no need to 
keep faith. Any way, the rat was in the trap, and 
De Ba9an did not mean to let him out. The 
Jesus lay furthest in ; the Minion lay beyond 
her towards the entrance, moored apparently to a 
ring on the quay, but free to move ; and the 
Judith^ further out again, moored in the same 
way. Nothing is said of the two small vessels 
remaining. 

De Bafan made his preparations silently, 
covered by the town. He had men in abundance 
ready to act where he should direct. On the third 
day, the 20th of September, at noon, the Minion^s 
crew had gone to dinner, when they saw a large hulk 
of 900 tons slowly towing up alongside of them. Not 
liking such a neighbour, they had their cable ready 
to slip and began to set their canvas. On a sudden 
shots and cries were heard from the town. Parties 
of English who were on land were set upon ; many 
were killed ; the rest were seen flinging themselves 
into the water and swimming off to the ships. At 
the same instant the guns of the galleons and of 
the shore batteries opened fire on the Jesus and 
her consorts, and in the smoke and confusion 
300 Spaniards swarmed out of the hulk and 
sprang on the Minion's decks. The Minion's 
men instantly cut them down or drove them over- 
board, hoisted sail, and forced their way out of 
the harbour, followed by the Judith, The Jesus 
was left alone, unable to stir. She defended her- 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 6i 

self desperately. In the many actions which were 
fought afterwards between the English and the 
Spaniards, there was never any more gallant or 
more severe. De Ba9an's own ship was sunk and 
the vice-admiral's was set on fire. The Spanish, 
having an enormous advantage in numbers, were 
able to land a force on the island, seize the English 
battery there, cut down the gunners, and turn the 
guns close at hand on the devoted Jesus. Still she 
fought on, defeating every attempt to board, till at 
length De Bagan sent down fire-ships on her, and 
then the end came. All that Hawkins had made 
by his voyage, money, bullion, the ship herself, had 
to be left to their fate. Hawkins himself with the 
survivors of the crew took to their boats, dashed 
through the enemy, who vainly tried to take them, 
and struggled out after the Minion and the Judith, 
It speaks ill for De Ba9an that with so large a force 
at his command, and in such a position, a single 
Englishman escaped to tell the story. 

Even when outside Hawkins's situation was still 
critical and might well be called desperate. The 
Judith was but fifty tons ; the Minion not above 
a hundred. They were now crowded up with 
men. They had little water on board, and there 
had been no time to refill their store-chests, or fit 
themselves for sea. Happily the weather was 
moderate. If the wind had risen, nothing could 
have saved them. They anchored two miles off to 
put themselves in some sort of order. The Spanish 



62 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

fleet did not venture to molest further so desperate 
a foe. On Saturday the 25th they set sail, scarcely 
knowing whither to turn. To attempt an ocean 
voyage as they were would be certain destruction, 
yet they could not trust longer to De Ba9an's 
cowardice or forbearance. There was supposed to 
be a shelter of some kind somewhere on the east 
side of the Gulf of Mexico, where it was hoped they 
might obtain provisions. They reached the place 
on October 8, but found nothing. Enghsh sailors 
have never been wanting in resolution. They 
knew that if they all remained on board every one 
of them must starve. A hundred volunteered to 
land and take their chance. The rest on short 
rations might hope to make their way home. The 
sacrifice was accepted. The hundred men were 
put on shore. They wandered for a few days in 
the woods, feeding on roots and berries, and shot 
at by the Indians. At length they reached a 
Spanish station, where they were taken and sent as 
prisoners to Mexico. There was, as I said, no 
Holy Office as yet in Mexico. The new Viceroy, 
though he had been in the fight at San Juan de 
UUoa, was not implacable. They were treated at 
first with humanity ; they were fed, clothed, taken 
care of, and then distributed among the planta-. 
tions. Some were employed as overseers, some as 
mechanics. Others, who understood any kind of 
business, were allowed to settle in towns, make 
money, and even marry and establish themselves. 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 63 

Perhaps Philip heard of it, and was afraid that so 
many heretics might introduce the plague. The 
quiet time lasted three years ; at the end of those 
years the Inquisitors arrived, and then, as if these 
poor men had been the special object of that 
dehghtful institution, they were hunted up, thrown 
into dungeons, examined on their faith, tortured, 
some burnt in an auto daf6^ some lashed through 
the streets of Mexico naked on horseback and 
returned to their prisons. Those who did not die 
under this pious treatment were passed over to the 
Holy Office at Seville and were condemned to the 
galleys. 

Here I leave them for the moment. We shall 
presently hear of them again in a very singular 
connection. The Minion and Judith meanwhile 
pursued their melancholy way. They parted 
company. The Judith^ being the better sailer, 
arrived first, and reached Plymouth in December, 
torn and tattered. Drake rode off post immediately 
to carry the bad news to London. The Minion's 
fate was worse. She made her course through the 
Bahama Channel, her crew dying as if struck with 
a pestilence, till at last there were hardly men 
enough left to handle the sails. They fell too far 
south for England, and at length had to put into 
Vigo, where their probable fate would be a Spanish 
prison. Happily they found other English vessels 
in the roads there. Fresh hands were put on board, 
and fresh provisions. With these supplies Hawkins 



64 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

reached Mount's Bay a month later than the 
Juditliy in January 1569. 

Drake had told the story, and all England was 
ringing with it. EngHshmen always think their 
own countrymen are in the right. The Spaniards, 
already in evil odour with the sea-going population, 
were accused of abominable treachery. The splen- 
did fight which Hawkins had made raised him into 
a national idol, and though he had suffered financi- 
ally, his loss was made up in reputation and autho- 
rity. Every privateer in the West was eager to 
serve under the leadership of the hero of San Juan 
de UUoa. He speedily found himself in command 
of a large irregular squadron, and even Cecil recog- 
nised his consequence. His chief and constant 
anxiety was for the comrades whom he had left 
behind, and he talked of a new expedition to recover 
them, or revenge them if they had been killed ; 
but all things had to wait. They probably found 
means of communicating with him, and as long as 
there was no Inquisition in Mexico, he may have 
learnt that there was no immediate occasion for 
action. 

Elizabeth put a brave face on her disappoint- 
ment. She knew that she was surrounded with 
treason, but she knew also that the boldest course 
was the safest. She had taken Alva's money, and 
was less than ever incHned to restore it. She had 
the best of the bargain in the arrest of the Spanish 
and English ships and cargoes. Alva would not 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 65 

encourage Philip to declare war with England till 
the Netherlands were completely reduced, and 
PhiKp, with his leaden foot {jpi6 de ploino), always 
preferred patience and intrigue. Time and he and 
the Pope were three powers which in the end, he 
thought, would prove irresistible, and indeed it 
seemed, after Hawkins's return, as if Philip would 
turn out to be right. The presence of the Queen 
of Scots in England had set in flame the CathoHc 
nobles. The wages of Alva's troops had been 
wrung somehow out of the wretched Provinces, and 
his supreme ability and inexorable resolution were 
steadily grinding down the revolt. Every port in 
Holland and Zealand was in Alva's hands. Eliza- 
beth's throne was undermined by the Ridolfi con- 
spiracy, the most dangerous which she had ever had 
to encounter. The only Protestant fighting power 
left on the sea which could be entirely depended 
on was in the privateer fleet, saihng, most of them, 
under a commission from the Prince of Orange. 

This fleet was the strangest phenomenon in 
naval history. It was half Dutch, half Enghsh, 
with a flavour of Huguenot, and was commanded 
by a Flemish noble. Count de la Mark. Its head- 
quarters were in the Downs or Dover Eoads, where 
it could watch the narrow seas, and seize every 
Spanish ship that passed which was not too strong 
to be meddled with. The cargoes taken were 
openly sold in Dover market. If the Spanish 
ambassador is to be believed in a complaint which 

F 



66 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

he addressed to Cecil, Spanish gentlemen taken 
prisoners were set up to pubhc auction there for 
the ransom which they would fetch, and were dis- 
posed of for one hundred pounds each. If Alva 
sent cruisers from Antwerp to bum them out, they 
retreated under the guns of Dover Castle. Roving 
squadrons of them flew down to the Spanish coasts, 
pillaged churches, carried off church plate, and the 
captains drank success to piracy at their banquets 
out of chaHces. The Spanish merchants at last 
estimated the property destroyed at three mil- 
lion ducats, and they said that if their flag could 
no longer protect them, they must decline to make 
further contracts for the supply of the Netherlands 
army. 

It was life or death to EHzabeth. The Ridolfi 
plot, an elaborate and far-reaching conspiracy to 
give her crown to Mary Stuart and to make away 
with heresy, was all but complete. The Pope and 
Philip had approved ; Alva was to invade ; the 
Duke of Norfolk was to head an insurrection in the 
Eastern Counties. Never had she been in greater 
danger. Elizabeth was herself to be murdered. 
The intention was known, but the particulars of 
the conspiracy had been kept so secret that she had 
not evidence enough to take measures to protect 
herself. The privateers at Dover were a sort of 
protection ; they would at least make Alva's crossing 
more difficult ; but the most pressing exigency was 
the discovery of the details of the treason. Nothing 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 67 

was to be gained by concession ; the only salvation 
was in daring. 

At Antwerp there was a certain Doctor Story, 
maintained by Alva there to keep a watch on 
English heretics. Story had been a persecutor 
under Mary, and had defended heretic burning in 
Elizabeth's first Parliament. He had refused the 
oath of allegiance, had left the country, and had 
taken to treason. Cecil wanted evidence, and this 
man he knew could give it. A pretended informer 
brought Story word that there was an English 
vessel in the Scheldt which he would find worth 
examining. Story was tempted on board. The 
hatches were closed over ^im. He was delivered 
two days after at the Tower, when his secrets were 
squeezed out of him by the rack and he was then 
hanged. 

Something was learnt, but less still than Cecil 
needed to take measures to protect the Queen. And 
now once more, and in a new character, we are to 
meet John Hawkins. Three years had passed since 
the catastrophe at San Juan de UUoa. He had 
learnt to his sorrow that his poor companions had 
fallen into the hands of the Holy Office at last ; had 
been burnt, lashed, starved in dungeons or worked 
in chains in the Seville yards ; and his heart, not 
a very tender one, bled at the thoughts of them. 
The finest feature in the seamen of those days was 
their devotion to one another. Hawkins determined 
that, one way or other, these old comrades of his 

V 2 



68 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

should be rescued. Entreaties were useless ; force 
was impossible. There might still be a chance with 
cunning. He would risk anything, even the loss of 
his soul, to save them. 

De Silva had left England. The Spanish am- 
bassador was now Don Guerau or Gerald de Espes, 
and to him had fallen the task of watching and 
directing the conspiracy. Phihp was to give the 
signal, the Duke of Norfolk and other Catholic 
peers were to rise and proclaim the Queen of Scots. 
Success would depend on the extent of the dis- 
affection in England itself ; and the ambassador's 
business was to welcome and encourage all 
symptoms of discontent. Hawkins knew generally 
what was going on, and he saw in it an opportunity 
of approaching Phihp on his weak side. Having 
been so much in the Canaries, he probably spoke 
Spanish fluently. He called on Don Guerau, 
and with audacious coolness represented that 
he and many of his friends were dissatisfied with 
the Queen's service. He said he had found her 
faithless and ungrateful, and he and they would 
gladly transfer their allegiance to the King of 
Spain, if the King of Spain would receive them. 
For himself, he would undertake to bring over the 
whole privateer fleet of the West, and in return he 
asked for nothing but the release of a few poor 
English seamen who were in prison at Seville. 

Don Guerau was full of the behef that the whole 
nation was ready to rebel. He eagerly swallowed 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 69 

the bait which Hawkins threw to him. He wrote 
to Alva, he wrote to Phihp's secretary, Cayas, 
expatiating on the importance of securing such an 
addition to their party. It was true, he admitted, 
that Hawkins had been a pirate, but piracy was a 
common fault of the EngHsh, and no wonder when 
the Spaniards submitted to being plundered so 
meekly ; the man who was offering his services was 
bold, resolute, capable, and had great influence 
with the English sailors ; he strongly advised that 
such a recruit should be encouraged. 

Alva would not hsten. Philip, wl^o shuddered 
at the very name of Hawkins, was incredulous. 
Don Guerau had to tell Sir John that the King at 
present declined his offer, but advised him to go 
himself to Madrid, or to send some confidential 
friend with assurances and explanations. 

Another figure now enters on the scene, a 
George Fitzwilham. I do not know who he was, or 
why Hawkins chose him for his purpose. The 
Duke of Feria was one of Philip's most trusted 
ministers. He had married an Enghsh lady who 
had been a maid of honour to Queen Mary. It is 
possible that Fitzwilham had some acquaintance 
with her or with her family. At any rate, he went 
to the Spanish Court ; he addressed himself to the 
Ferias ; he won their confidence, and by their 
means was admitted to an interview with Phihp. 
He represented Hawkins as a faithful Cathohc who 
was indignant at the progress of heresy in England, 



(70 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

who was eager to assist in the overthrow of EK- 
zabeth and the elevation of the Queen of Scots, 
and was able and willing to carry along with him 
the great Western privateer fleet, which had become 
so dreadful to the Spanish mind. Phihp listened 
and was interested. It was only natural, he thought, 
that heretics should be robbers and pirates. If they 
could be recovered to the Church, their bad habits 
would leave them. The English navy was the 
most serious obstacle to the intended invasion. 
Still, Hawkins ! The Achines of his nightmares ! 
It could not be. He asked FitzwiUiam if his friend 
was acquainted with the Queen of Scots or the Duke 
of Norfolk. FitzwiUiam was obliged to say that he 
was not. The credentials of John Hawkins were 
his own right hand. He was making the King a 
magnificent offer : nothing less than a squadron of 
the finest ships in the world — not perhaps in the 
best condition, he added, with cool British 
impudence, owing to the Queen's parsimony, but 
easily to be put in order again if the King would 
pay the seamen's wages and advance some money 
for repairs. The release of a few poor prisoners 
was a small price to ask for such a service. 

The King was still wary, watching the bait hke 
an old pike, but hesitating to seize it ; but the duke 
and duchess were willing to be themselves securities 
for FitzwiUiam' s faith, and Philip promised at last 
that if Hawkins would send him a letter of re- 
commendation from the Queen of Scots herself, he 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 71 

would then see what could be done. The Ferias 
were dangerously enthusiastic. They talked freely 
to FitzwiUiam of the Queen of Scots and her 
prospects. They trusted him with letters and 
presents to her which would secure his admittance 
to her confidence. Hawkins had sent him over for 
the single purpose of cheating Philip into releasing 
his comrades from the Inquisition ; and he had been 
introduced to secrets of high poHtical moment ; like 
Saul, the son of Kish, he had gone to seek his 
father's asses and he had found a kingdom. Fitz- 
wiUiam hurried home with his letters and his news. 
Things were now serious. Hawkins could act no 
further on his own responsibihty. He consulted 
Cecil. Cecil consulted the Queen, and it was agreed 
that the practice, as it was called, should be carried 
further. It might lead to the discovery of the 
whole secret. 

Very treacherous, think some good people. 
Well, there are times when one admires even 
treachery — 

nee lex est justior ulla 
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua. 

King Phihp was confessedly preparing to encourage 
an Enghsh subject in treason to his sovereign. 
Was it so wrong to hoist the engineer with his own 
petard? Was it wrong of Hamlet to finger the 
packet of Eosencrantz and Guildenstern and rewrite 
his uncle's despatch ? Let us have done with cant 
in these matters. Mary Stuart was at Sheffield 



72 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Castle in charge of Lord Shrewsbury, and Fitz- 
William could not see her without an order from 
the Crown. Shrewsbury, though loyal to Elizabeth, 
was notoriously well inclined to Mary, and there- 
fore could not be taken into confidence. In writing 
to him Cecil merely said that friends of Fitz- 
wilUam's were in prison in Spain ; that if the Queen 
of Scots would intercede for them, Phihp might be 
induced to let them go. He might therefore allow 
FitzwiUiam to have a private audience with that- 
Queen. 

Thus armed, FitzwiUiam went down to Shefl&eld. 
He was introduced. He began with presenting^ 
Mary with the letters and remembrances from the 
Ferias, which at once opened her heart. It was 
impossible for her to suspect a friend of the duke 
and duchess. She was delighted at receiving a 
visitor from the Court of Spain. She was prudent 
enough to avoid dangerous confidences, but she 
said she was always pleased when she could do a 
service to Englishmen, and with all her heart would 
intercede for the prisoners. She wrote to Philip, 
she wrote to the duke and duchess, and gave the 
letters to FitzwiUiam to deUver. He took them to 
London, caUed on Don Gerald, and told him of his 
success. Don Gerald also wrote to his master, 
wrote unguardedly, and also trusted FitzwiUiam 
with the despatch. 

The various packets were taken first to CecU, 
and were next shown to the Queen. They were 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 73- 

then returned to Fitzwilliam, who once more went 
off with them to Madrid. If the letters produced 
the expected effect, Cecil calmly observed that 
divers commodities would ensue. English sailors 
would be released from the Inquisition and the 
galleys. The enemy's intentions would be dis- 
covered. If the King of Spain could be induced to 
do as Fitzwilliam had suggested, and assist in the 
repairs of the ships at Plymouth, credit would be 
obtained for a sum of money which could be 
employed to his own detriment. If Alva attempted 
the projected invasion, Hawkins might take the 
ships as if to escort him, and then do some notable 
exploit in mid-Channel. 

You will observe the downright directness of 
Cecil, Hawkins, and the other parties in the matter. 
There is no wrapping up their intentions in fine 
phrases, no parade of justification. They went 
straight to their point. It was very characteristic 
of Enghshmen in those stern, dangerous times. 
They looked facts in the face, and did what fact 
required. All really happened exactly as I have 
described it : the story is told in letters and docu- 
ments of the authenticity of which there is not the 
smallest doubt. 

We will follow Fitzwilham. He arrived at the 
Spanish Court at the moment when Eidolfi had 
brought from Eome the Pope's blessing on the 
conspiracy. The final touches were being added 
by the Spanish Council of State. All was hope ; 



74 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

all was the credulity of enthusiasm ! Mary Stuart's 
letter satisfied Philip. The prisoners were dis- 
missed, each with ten dollars in his pocket. An 
agreement was formally drawn and signed in the 
Escurial in which Phihp gave Hawkins a pardon 
for his misdemeanours in the West Indies, a patent 
for a Spanish peerage, and a letter of credit for 
40,000Z. to put the privateers in a condition to do 
service, and the money was actually paid by Philip's 
London agent. Admitted as he now was to full 
confidence, FitzwiUiam learnt all particulars of the 
great plot. The story reads Uke a chapter from 
Monte Cristo, and yet it is Hterally true. 

It ends with a letter which I will read to you, 
from Hawkins to Cecil : — 

^ My very good Lord, — It may please your 
Honour to be advertised that FitzwilHam is returned 
from Spain, where his message was acceptably 
received, both by the King himself, the Duke of 
Feria, and others of the Privy Council. His 
despatch and answer were with great expedition 
and great countenance and favour of the King. 
The Articles are sent to the Ambassador with 
orders also for the money to be paid to me by him, 
for the enterprise to proceed with all diligence. 
The pretence is that my powers should join with 
the Duke of Alva's powers, which he doth secretly 
provide in Flanders, as well as with powers which 
will come with the Duke of Medina Ceh out of 



.;<j. 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 75 

Spain, and to invade this realm and set up the 
Queen of Scots. They have practised with us for 
the burning of Her Majesty's ships. Therefore 
there should be some good care had of them, but 
not as it may appear that anything is discovered. 
The King has sent a ruby of good price to the 
Queen of Scots, with letters also which in my judg- 
ment were good to be deUvered. The letters be of 
no importance, but his message by word is to 
comfort her, and say that he hath now none other 
care but to place her in her own. It were good also 
that Fitzwilliam may have access to the Queen of 
Scots to render thanks for the deHvery of the 
prisoners who are now at liberty. It will be a very 
good colour for your Lordship to confer with him 
more largely. 

' I have sent your Lordship the copy of my 
pardon from the King of Spain, in the order and 
manner I have it, with my great titles and honours 
from the King, from which God deliver me. Their 
practices be very mischievous, and they be never 
idle ; but God, I hope, wiU confound them and turn 
their devices on their own necks. 

* Your Lordship's most faithfully to my power, 

' John Hawkins.' 

A few more words will conclude this curious 
episode. With the clue obtained by Fitzwilliam, 
and confessions twisted out of Story and other un- 
willing witnesses, the Eidolfi conspiracy was un- 



76 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

ravelled before it broke into act. Norfolk lost his 
head. The inferior miscreants were hanged. The 
Queen of Scots had a narrow escape, and the Parlia- 
ment accentuated the Protestant character of the 
Church of England by embodying the Thirty-nine 
Articles in a statute. Alva, who distrusted Eidolfi 
from the first and disliked encouraging rebellion, 
refused to interest himself further in Anglo-Catholic 
plots. Elizabeth and Cecil could now breathe more 
freely, and read PhiUp a lesson on the danger of 
plotting against the Hves of sovereigns. 

So long as England and Spain were nominally 
at peace, the presence of De la Mark and his 
privateers in the Downs was at least indecent. A 
committee of merchants at Bruges represented that 
their losses by it amounted (as I said) to three 
million ducats. Elizabeth, being now in comparative 
safety, affected to Hsten to remonstrances, and orders 
were sent down to De la Mark that he must pre- 
pare to leave. It is likely that both the Queen 
and he understood each other, and that De la Mark 
quite well knew where he was to go, and what he 
was to do. 

Alva now held every fortress in the Low 
Countries, whether inland or on the coast. The 
people were crushed. The duke's great statue 
stood in the square at Antwerp as a symbol of the 
annihilation of the ancient liberties of the Pro- 
vinces. By sea alone the Prince of Orange still 
continued the unequal struggle ; but if he was to 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 77 

maintain himself as a sea power anywhere, he 
required a harbour of his own in his own country. 
Dover and the Thames had served for a time as a 
base of operations, but it could not last, and with- 
out a footing in Holland itself eventual success was 
impossible. All the Protestant world was interested 
in his fate, and De la Mark, with his miscellaneous 
gathering of Dutch, English, and Huguenot rovers, 
were ready for any desperate exploit. 

The order was to leave Dover immediately, but 
it was not construed strictly. He Hngered in the 
Downs for six weeks. At length, one morning at 
the end of March 1672, a Spanish convoy known to 
be richly loaded appeared in the Straits. De la 
Mark hfted anchor, darted out on it, seized two of 
the largest hulks, rifled them, flung their crews 
overboard, and chased the rest up Channel. A day 
or two after he suddenly showed himself off Brille, 
at the mouth of the Meuse. A boat was sent on 
shore with a note to the governor, demanding the 
instant surrender of the town to the admiral of 
the Prince of Orange. The inhabitants rose in 
enthusiasm; the garrison was small, and the go- 
vernor was obhged to comply. De la Mark took 
possession. A few priests and monks attempted 
resistance, but were put down without difficulty, 
and the leaders killed. The churches were cleared 
of their idols, and the mass replaced by the 
Calvinistic service. Cannon and stores, furnished 
from London, were landed, and Brille was made 



78 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

impregnable before Alva had realised what had 
happened to him. He is said to have torn his 
beard for anger. Flushing followed suit. In a 
week or two all the strongest places on the coast 
had revolted, and the pirate fleet had laid the 
foundation of the great Dutch Eepublic, which at 
England's side was to strike out of PhiKp's hand 
the sceptre of the seas, and to save the Protestant 
religion. 

We may think as we please of these Beggars of 
the Ocean, these Norse corsairs come to life again 
with the flavour of Genevan theology in them ; but 
for daring, for ingenuity, for obstinate determination 
to be spiritually free or to die for it, the hke of the 
Protestant privateers of the sixteenth century has 
been rarely met with in this world. 

•England rang with joy when the news came 
that Brille was taken. Church bells pealed, and 
bonfires blazed. Money poured across in streams. 
Exiled famiUes went back to their homes — which 
were to be their homes once more — and the 
Zealanders and Hollanders, entrenched among 
their ditches, prepared for an amphibious conflict 
with the greatest power then upon the earth. 



79 



LECTUEE IV 

deake's voyage round the world 

I SUPPOSE some persons present have heard the 
name of Lope de Vega, the Spanish poet of Phihp 
II.'s time. Very few of you probably know more of 
him than his name, and yet he ought to have some 
interest for us, as he was one of the many enthu- 
siastic young Spaniards who sailed in the Great 
Armada. He had been disappointed in some love 
aJBair. He was an earnest Catholic. He wanted 
distraction, and it is needless to say that he found 
distraction enough in the English Channel to put 
his love troubles out of his mind. His adventures 
brought before him v^ith some vividness the cha- 
racter of the nation with which his own country 
was then in the death-grapple, especially the cha- 
racter of the great English seaman to whom the 
Spaniards universally attributed their defeat. Lope 
studied the exploits of Francis Drake from his first 
appearance to his end, and he celebrated those 
exploits, as England herself has never yet thought 
it worth her while to do, by making him the hero of 
an epic poem. There are heroes and heroes. Lope 
de Vega's epic is called * The Dragontea.' Drake 



3o ENGLISH SEAMEN 

himself is the dragon, the ancient serpent of the Apo- 
caljrpse. We Enghsh have been contented to allow 
Drake a certain qualified praise. We admit that he 
was a bold, dexterous sailor, that he did his country 
good service at the Invasion. We allow that he 
was a famous navigator, and sailed round the world, 
which no one else had done before him. But — there 
is always a but — of course he was a robber and a 
corsair, and the only excuse for him is that he was 
no worse than most of his contemporaries. To 
Lope de Vega he was a great deal worse. He was 
Satan himself, the incarnation of the Genius of 
Evil, the arch-enemy of the Church of God. 

It is worth while to look more particularly 
at the figure of a man who appeared to the 
Spaniards in such terrible proportions. I, for my 
part, believe a time will come when we shall see 
better than we see now what the Eeformation was, 
and what we owe to it, and these sea-captains of 
EHzabeth wiU then form the subject of a great 
EngHsh national epic as grand as the ' Odyssey.' 

In my own poor way meanwhile I shall try in 
these lectures to draw you a sketch of Drake and 
his doings as they appear to myself. To-day I can 
but give you a part of the rich and varied story, 
but if all goes well I hope I may be able to continue 
it at a future time. 

I have not yet done with Sir John Hawkins. 
We shall hear of him again. He became the 
manager of Ehzabeth's dockyards. He it was who 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 8i 

turned out the ships that fought Phihp's fleet in 
the Channel in such condition that not a hull 
leaked, not a spar was sprung, not a rope parted at 
an unseasonable moment, and this at a minimum 
of cost. He served himself in the squadron which 
he had equipped. He was one of the small group 
of admirals who met that Sunday afternoon in the 
cabin of the ark Raleigh^ and sent the fireships 
down to stir Medina Sidonia out of his anchorage 
at Calais. He was a child of the sea, and at sea 
he died, sinking at last into his mother's arms. 
But of this hereafter. I must speak now of his 
still more illustrious kinsman, Francis Drake. 

I told you the other day generally who Drake 
was and where he came from ; how he went to sea 
as a boy, found favour with his master, became 
early an owner of his own ship, sticking steadily 
to trade. You hear nothing of him in connection 
with the Channel pirates. It was not till he was 
five-and-twenty that he was tempted by Hawkins 
into the negro-catching business, and of this one 
experiment was enough. He never tried it again. 

The portraits of him vary very much, as indeed 
it is natural that they should, for most of those 
which pass for Drake were not meant for Drake at 
all. It is the fashion in this country, and a very- 
bad fashion, when we find a remarkable portrait 
with no name authoritatively attached to it, to 
christen it at random after some eminent man, and 
there it remains to perplex or mislead. 

a 



82 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

The best likeness of Drake that I know is an 
engraving in Sir WiUiam Stirhng-Maxwell's collec- 
tion of sixteenth-century notabilities, representing 
him, as a scroll says at the foot of the plate, at the 
age of forty-three. The face is round, the forehead 
broad and full, with the short brown hair curling 
crisply on either side. The eyebrows are highly 
arched, the eyes firm, clear, and open. I cannot 
undertake for the colour, but I should judge they 
would be dark grey, like an eagle's. The nose is 
short and thick, the mouth and chin hid by a heavy 
moustache on the upper lip, and a close-clipped 
beard well spread over chin and cheek. The 
expression is good-humoured, but absolutely in- 
flexible, not a weak line to be seen. He was of 
middle height, powerfully built, perhaps too power- 
fully for grace, unless the quilted doublet in which 
the artist has dressed him exaggerates his breadth. 

I have seen another portrait of him, with pre- 
tensions to authenticity, in which he appears with 
a slighter figure, eyes dark, full, thoughtful, and 
stern, a sailor's cord about his neck with a whistle 
attached to it, and a ring into which a thumb is 
carelessly thrust, the weight of the arms resting on 
it, as if in a characteristic attitude. Evidently 
this is a carefully drawn likeness of some remark- 
able seaman of the time. I should like to beheve 
it to be Drake, but I can feel no certainty about it. 

We left him returned home in the Judith from 
San Juan de UUoa, a ruined man. He had never 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 83 

injured the Spaniards. He had gone out with his 
cousin merely to trade, and he had met with a 
hearty reception from the settlers wherever he had 
been. A Spanish admiral had treacherously set 
upon him and his kinsman, destroyed half their 
vessels, and robbed them of all that they had. 
They had left a hundred of their comrades behind 
them, for whose fate they might fear the worst. 
Drake thenceforth considered Spanish property as 
fair game till he had made up his own losses. He 
waited quietly for four years till he had re-esta- 
bUshed himself, and then prepared to try fortune 
again in a more daring form. 

The ill-luck at San Juan de UUoa had risen 
from loose tongues. There had been too much talk 
about it. Too many parties had been concerned. 
The Spanish Government had notice and were 
prepared. Drake determined to act for himself, 
have no partners, and keep his own secret. He 
found friends to trust him ^^4th money without 
asking for explanations. The Pljinouth sailors 
were eager to take their chance with him. His 
force was absurdly small : a sloop or brigantine 
of a hundred tons, which he called the Dragon 
(perhaps, like Lope de Vega, plajnng on his own 
name), and two small pinnaces. With these he 
left Plymouth in the fall of the summer of 1572. 
He had ascertained that Philip's gold and silver 
from the Peruvian mines was landed at Panama, 
carried across the isthmus on mules' backs on the 

G 2 



84 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

line of M. de Lesseps' canal, and re-shipped at 
Nombre de Dios, at the mouth of the Chagre Eiver. 

He told no one where he was going. He was 
no more communicative than necessary after his 
return, and the results, rather than the particulars, 
of his adventure are all that can be certainly known. 
Discretion told him to keep his counsel, and he 
kept it. 

The Drake family pubhshed an account of this 
voyage in the middle of the next century, but 
obviously mythical, in parts demonstrably false, and 
nowhere to be depended on. It can be made out, 
however, that he did go to Nombre de Dios, that 
he found his way into the town, and saw stores of 
bullion there which he would have liked to carry 
off but could not. A romantic story of a fight in 
the town I disbeheve, first because his numbers 
were so small that to try force would have been 
absurd, and next because if there had been really 
anything like a battle an alarm would have been 
raised in the neighbourhood, and it is evident that 
no alarm was given. In the woods were parties of 
runaw^ay slaves, who were called Cimarons. It 
was to these that Drake addressed himself, and 
they volunteered to guide him where he could sur- 
prise the treasure convoy on the way from Panama. 
His movements w^ere silent and rapid. One inte- 
resting incident is mentioned which is authentic. 
The Cimarons took him through the forest to the 
watershed from which the streams flow to both 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 85 

oceans. Nothing could be seen through the jungle 
of undergrowth ; but Drake climbed a tall tree, saw 
from the top of it the Pacific glittering below him, 
and made a vow that one day he would himself 
sail a ship in those waters. 

For the present he had immediate work on 
hand. His guides kept their word. They led him 
to the track from Panama, and he had not long to 
wait before the tinkling was heard of the mule bells 
as they were coming up the pass. There was no 
suspicion of danger, not the faintest. The mule 
train had but its ordinary guard, who fled at the 
first surprise. The immense booty fell all into 
Drake's hands — gold, jewels, silver bars — and got 
with much ease, as Prince Hal said at Gadshill. 
The silver they buried, as too heavy for transport. 
The gold, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds 
they carried down straight to their ship. The 
voyage home went prosperously. The spoils were 
shared among the adventurers, and they had no 
reason to complain. They were wise enough to 
hold their tongues, and Drake was in a condition 
to look about him and prepare for bigger enter- 
prises. 

Eumours got abroad, spite of reticence. Imagi- 
nation was high in flight just then ; rash amateurs 
thought they could make their fortunes in the same 
way, and tried it, to their sorrow. A sort of infla- 
tion can be traced in English sailors' minds as 
their work expanded. Even Hawkins — the clear, 



S6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

practical Hawkins — was infected. This was not 
in Drake's line. He kept to prose and fact. He 
studied the globe. He examined all the charts that 
he could get. He became known to the Privy 
Council and the Queen, and prepared for an enter- 
prise which would make his name and frighten 
Philip in earnest. 

The ships which the Spaniards used on the 
Pacific were usually built on the spot. But Ma- 
gellan was known to have gone by the Horn, and 
where a Portuguese could go an Enghshman could 
go. Drake proposed to try. There was a party in 
Elizabeth's Council against these adventures, and in 
favour of peace with Spain ; but Elizabeth herself 
was always for enterprises of pith and moment. She 
was willing to help, and others of her Council were 
willing too, provided their names were not to 
appear. The responsibility was to be Drake's own. 
Again the vessels in which he was preparing to 
tempt fortune seem preposterously small. The 
Pelican^ or Golden Hinde^ which belonged to Drake 
himself, was called but 120 tons, at best no larger 
than a modern racing yawl, though perhaps no 
racing yawl ever left White's yard better found 
for the work which she had to do. The next, the 
Elizabeth^ of London, was said to be eighty tons ; 
a small pinnace of twelve tons, in which we should 
hardly risk a summer cruise round the Land's End, 
with two sloops or frigates of fifty and thirty tons, 
made the rest. The Elizabeth was commanded 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD Sy 

by Captain Winter, a Queen's officer, and perhaps 
a son of the old admiral. 

We may credit Drake with knowing what he 
was about. He and his comrades wete carrying 
their lives in their hands. If they were taken they 
would be inevitably hanged. Their safety depended 
on speed of sailing, and specially on the power of 
working fast to windward, which the heavy square- 
rigged ships could not do. The crews all told were 
160 men and boys. Drake had his brother John 
"with him. Among his officers were the chaplain, 
IMr. Fletcher, another minister of some kind who 
spoke Spanish, and in one of the sloops a mysterious 
Mr. Doughty. Who Mr. Doughty was, and why 
lie was sent out, is uncertain. When an expedition 
•of consequence was on hand, the Spanish party in 
the Cabinet usually attached to it some second in 
•command whose business was to defeat the object. 
When Drake went to Cadiz in after years to singe 
King Philip's beard, he had a colleague sent with 
him whom he had to lock into his cabin before he 
could get to his work. So far as I can make out, 
Mr. Doughty had a similar commission. On this 
occasion secrecy was impossible. It was generally 
known that Drake was going to the Pacific through 
Magellan Straits, to act afterwards on his own 
judgment. The Spanish ambassador, now Don 
Bernardino de Mendoza, in informing Philip of 
what was intended, advised him to send out orders 
for the instant sinking of every EngHsh ship, and 



88 ENGLISH SEAiMEN 

the execution of every English sailor, that ap- 
peared on either side the isthmus in West Indian 
waters. The orders were despatched, but so im- 
possible it seemed that an English pirate could 
reach the Pacific, that the attention was confined 
to the Caribbean Sea, and not a hint of alarm was 
sent across to the other side. 

On November 15, 1577, the Pelican and her 
consort sailed out of Plymouth Sound. The 
elements frowned on their start. On the second 
day they were caught in a winter gale. The 
Pelican sprung her mainmast, and they put back 
to refit and repair. But Drake defied auguries. 
Before the middle of December all was again in order. 
The w^eather mended, and with a fair wdnd and 
smooth w^ater they made a fast run across the Bay 
of Biscay and down the coast to the Cape de Verde 
Islands. There taking up the north-east trades, 
they struck across the Atlantic, crossed the line, 
and made the South American continent in latitude 
33° South. They passed the mouth of the Plate 
Kiver, finding to their astonishment fresh water at 
the ship's side in fifty-four fathoms. All seemed 
so far going well, when one morning Mr. Doughty's 
sloop was missing, and he along with her. Drake,, 
it seemed, had already reason to distrust Doughty,, 
and guessed the direction in which he had gone. 
The Marigold was sent in pursuit, and he was 
overtaken and brought back. To prevent a repeti-^ 
tion of such a performance, Drake took the sloop's 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 89 

stores out of her, burnt her, distributed the crew 
through the other vessels, and took Mr. Doughty 
under his own charge. On June 20 they reached 
Port St. Julian, on the coast of Patagonia. 
They had been long on the way, and the southern 
winter had come round, and they had to delay 
further to make more particular inquiry into 
Doughty's desertion. An ominous and strange 
spectacle met their eyes as they entered the har- 
bour. In that utterly desolate spot a skeleton was 
hanging on a gallows, the bones picked clean by 
the vultures. It was one of Magellan's crew who 
had been executed there for mutiny fifty years 
before. The same fate was to befall the unhappy 
Englishman who had been guilty of the same fault. 
Without the strictest discipline it was impossible 
for the enterprise to succeed, and Doughty had been 
guilty of worse than disobedience. We are told 
briefly that his conduct was found tending to con- 
tention, and threatening the success of the voyage. 
Part he was said to have confessed; part was 
proved against him — one knows not what. A court 
was formed but of the crew. He was tried, as near 
as circumstances allowed, according to English 
usage. He was found guilty, and was sentenced 
to die. He made no complaint, or none of which 
a record is preserved. He asked for the Sacrament, 
which was of course allowed, and Drake himself 
communicated with him. They then kissed each 
other, and the unlucky wretch took leave of his 



•90 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

comrades, laid his head on the block, and so ended. 
His offence can be only guessed ; but the suspicious 
curiosity about his fate which was shown afterwards 
by Mendoza makes it likely that he was in Spanish 
pay. The ambassador cross-questioned Captain 
Winter very particularly about him, and we learn 
one remarkable fact from Mendoza's letters not 
mentioned by any EngHsh writer, that Drake was 
himself the executioner, choosing to bear the entire 
responsibiUty. 

' This done,' writes an eyeA\dtness, ' the general 
made divers speeches to the whole company, per- 
suading us to unity, obedience, and regard of our 
voyage, and for the better confirmation thereof 
willed every man the Sunday following to prepare 
himself to receive the Communion as Christian 
brothers and friends ought to- do, which was done 
in very reverend sort ; and so with good content- 
ment every man went about his business.' 

You must take this last incident into your 
<3onception of Drake's character, think of it how 
you please. 

It was now midwinter, the stormiest season of 
the year, and they remained for six weeks in Port 
St. Juhan. They burnt the twelve-ton pinnace, as 
too small for the work they had now before them, 
and there remained only the Pelican^ the Eliza- 
bethj and the Marigold. In cold wild weather 
they weighed at last, and on August 20 made the 
opening of Magellan's Straits. The passage is 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 91 

seventy miles long, tortuous and dangerous. They 
had no charts. The ships' boats led, taking sound- 
ings as they advanced. Icy mountains overhung 
them on either side ; heavy snow fell below. 
They brought up occasionally at an island to rest 
the men, and let them kill a few seals and penguins 
to give them fresh food. Everything they saw was 
new, wild, and wonderful. 

Having to feel their way, they were three weeks 
in getting through. They had counted on reaching 
the Pacific that the worst of their work was over, 
and that they could run north at once into warmer 
and calmer latitudes. The peaceful ocean, when 
they entered it, proved the stormiest they had 
ever sailed on. A fierce \yesterly gale drove them 
600 miles to the south-east outside the Horn. 
It had been supposed, hitherto, that Tierra del 
Fuego was solid land to the South Pole, and 
that the Straits were the only communication 
between the Atlantic and the Pacific. They now 
learnt the true shape and character of the Western 
Continent. In the latitude of Cape Horn a westerly 
gale blows for ever round the globe ; the waves 
the highest anywhere known. The Marigold went 
down in the tremendous encounter. Captain 
Winter, in the Elizabeth^ made his way back into 
Magellan's Straits. There he lay for three weeks, 
lighting fires nightly to show Drake where he was, 
but no Drake appeared. They had agreed, if 
separated, to meet on the coast in the latitude of 



92 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Valparaiso ; but Winter was chicken-hearted, or 
else traitorous like Doughty, and sore, we are told, 
* against the mariners' will,' when the three weeks 
were out, he sailed away for England, where he 
reported that all the ships were lost but the PelicaUy 
and that the Pelican was probably lost too. 

Drake had believed better of Winter, and had 
not expected to be so deserted. He had himself 
taken refuge among the islands which form the 
Cape, waiting for the spring and milder weather. 
He used the time in making surveys, and observing 
the habits of the native Patagonians, whom he 
found a tough race, going naked amidst ice and 
snow. The days lengthened, and the sea smoothed 
at last. He then sailed for Valparaiso, hoping to 
meet Winter there, as he had arranged. At Val- 
paraiso there was no Winter, but there was in the 
port instead a great galleon just come in from Peru. 
The galleon's crew took him for a Spaniard, hoisted 
their colours, and beat their drums. The Pelican 
shot alongside. The English sailors in high spirits 
leapt on board. A Plymouth lad who could speak 
Spanish knocked down the first man he met with 
an ' Abajo, perro ! ' ' Down, you dog, down ! ' No 
life was taken ; Drake never hurt man if he could 
help it. The crew crossed themselves, jumped 
overboard, and swam ashore. The prize was 
examined. Four hundred pounds' weight of gold 
was found in her, besides other plunder. 

The galleon being disposed of, Drake and his 



DRAKFS VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 93 

znen pulled ashore to look at the town. The people 
iad all fled. In the church they found a chalice, 
iiwo cruets, and an altar-cloth, which were made 
over to the chaplain to improve his Communion 
iurniture. A few pipes of wine and a Greek pilot 
who knew the way to Lima completed the booty. 

' Shocking piracy,' you will perhaps say. But 
what Drake was doing would have been all right 
and good service had war been declared, and the 
essence of things does not alter with the form. In 
essence there was war, deadly war, between PhiUp 
and EKzabeth. Even later, when the Armada 
sailed, there had been no formal declaration. The 
reality is the important part of the matter. It was 
but stroke for stroke, and the EngHsh arm proved 
the stronger. 

Still hoping to find Winter in advance of him, 
Drake went on next to Tarapaca, where silver from 
the Andes mines was shipped for Panama. At 
Tarapaca there was the same unconsciousness of 
danger. The silver bars lay piled on the quay, the 
muleteers who had brought them were sleeping 
peacefully in the sunshine at their side. The mule- 
teers were left to their slumbers. The bars were 
lifted into the English boats. A train of mules or 
llamas came in at the moment with a second load 
as rich as the first. This, too, went into the 
Pelican's hold. The bullion taken at Tarapaca 
was worth near half a million ducats. 

Still there were no news of Winter. Drake 



94 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

began to realise that he was now entirely alone^ 
and had only himself and his own crew to depend 
on. There was nothing to do but to go through 
with it, danger adding to the interest. Arica was 
the next point visited. Half a hundred blocks of 
silver were picked up at Arica. After Arica came 
Lima, the chief dep6t of all, where the grandest 
haul was looked for. At Lima, alas ! they were 
just too late. Twelve great hulks lay anchored 
there. The sails were unbent, the men were 
ashore. They contained nothing but some chests 
of reals and a few bales of silk and hnen. But a 
thirteenth, called by the gods Our Lady of the 
Conception^ called by men Cacafuego^ a name in- 
capable of translation, had sailed a few days before 
for the isthmus, with the whole produce of the 
Lima mines for the season. Her ballast was silver, 
her cargo gold and emeralds and rubies. 

Drake dehberately cut the cables of the ships, 
in the roads, that they might drive ashore and be 
unable to follow him. The Pelican spread her 
wdngs, every feather of them, and sped away in 
pursuit. He would know the Cacafuego^ so he 
learnt at Lima, by the peculiar cut of her sails. 
The first man who caught sight of her was promised 
a gold chain for his reward. A sail was seen on 
the second day. It was not the chase, but it was 
worth stopping for. Eighty pounds' weight of gold 
was found, and a great gold crucifix, set with 
emeralds said to be as large as pigeon's eggs.. 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 95: 

They took the kernel. They left the shell. Still 
on and on. We learn from the Spanish accounts 
that the Viceroy of Lima, as soon as he recovered 
from his astonishment, despatched ships in pursuit. 
They came up with the last plundered vessel, heard 
terrible tales of the rovers' strength, and went back 
for a larger force. The Pelican meanwhile went 
along upon her course for 800 miles. At length,, 
when in the latitude of Quito and close under the 
shore, the Cacafiiego's peculiar sails were sighted, 
and the gold chain was claimed. There she was, 
freighted with the fruit of Aladdin's garden, going 
lazily along a few miles ahead. Care was needed 
in approaching her. If she guessed the Pelican's 
character, she would run in upon the land and they 
would lose her. It was afternoon. The sun was 
still above the horizon, and Drake meant to wait 
till night, when the breeze would be ofE the shore, 
as in the tropics it always is. 

The Pelican sailed two feet to the Cacafuego's 
one. Drake filled his empty wine-skins with water 
and trailed them astern to stop his way. The 
chase supposed that she was followed by some 
heavy-loaded trader, and, wishing for company on 
a lonely voyage, she slackened sail and waited for 
him to come up. At length the sun went down 
into the ocean, the rosy light faded from ofE the 
snows of the Andes ; and when both ships had become 
invisible from the shore, the skins were hauled in, 
the night wind rose, and the water began to ripple 



96 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

under the Pelican's bows. The Cacafuego was 
swiftly overtaken, and when within a cable's length 
a voice hailed her to put her head into the wind. 
The Spanish commander, not understanding so 
strange an order, held on his course. A broadside 
brought down his mainyard, and a flight of arrows 
rattled on his deck. He was himself wounded. 
In a few minutes he was a prisoner, and Our Lady 
of the Conception and her precious freight were in 
the corsair's power. The wreck was cut away ; 
the ship was cleared; a prize crew was put on 
board. Both vessels turned their heads to the sea. 
At daybreak no land was to be seen, and the exami- 
nation of the prize began. The full value was 
never acknowledged. The invoice, if there was 
one, was destroyed. The accurate figures were 
known only to Drake and Queen Elizabeth. A 
published schedule acknowledged to twenty tons of 
silver bulhon, thirteen chests of silver coins, and a 
hundredweight of gold, but there were gold nuggets 
besides in indefinite quantity, and ' a great store ' 
of pearls, emeralds, and diamonds. The Spanish 
Government proved a loss of a million and a half 
of ducats, excluding what belonged to private 
persons. The total capture was immeasurably 
greater. 

Drake, we are told, was greatly satisfied. He 
thought it prudent to stay in the neighbourhood no 
longer than necessary. He went north with all 
sail set, taking his prize along with him. The 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 97 

master, San Juan de Anton, was removed on board 
the Pelican to have his wound attended to. He 
remained as Drake's guest for a week, and sent in 
a report of what he observed to the Spanish Govern- 
ment. One at least of Drake's party spoke excel- 
lent Spanish. This person took San Juan over the 
ship. She showed signs, San Juan said, of rough 
service, but was still in fine condition, with ample 
arms, spare rope, mattocks, carpenters' tools of all 
descriptions. There were eighty-five men on board 
all told, fifty of them men-of-war, the rest young 
fellows, ship-boys and the like. Drake himself was 
treated with great reverence ; a sentinel stood 
always at his cabin door. He dined alone with 
music. 

No mystery was made of the Pelican's exploits. 
The chaplain showed San Juan the crucifix set 
with emeralds, and asked him if he could seriously 
believe that to be God. San Juan asked Drake 
how he meant to go home. Drake showed him a 
globe with three courses traced on it. There was 
the way that he had come, there was the way by 
China and the Cape of Good Hope, and there was 
a third way which he did not explain. San Juan 
asked if Spain and England were at war. Drake 
said he had a commission from the Queen. His 
captures were for her, not for himself. He added 
afterwards that the Viceroy of Mexico had robbed 
him and his kinsman, and he was making good his 
losses. 

H 



98 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Then, touching the point of the sore, he said, 
' I know the Viceroy will send for thee to inform 
himself of my proceedings. Tell him he shall 
do well to put no more Englishmen to death, 
and to spare those he has in his hands, for if he 
do execute them I will hang 2,000 Spaniards and 
send him their heads.' 

After a week's detention San Juan and his men 
were restored to the empty Cacafuego^ and allowed 
to go. On their way back they fell in with the two 
cruisers sent in pursuit from Lima, reinforced by a 
third from Panama. They were now fully armed ; 
they went in chase, and according to their own 
account came up with the Pelican. But, like 
Lope de Vega, they seemed to have been terrified 
at Drake as a sort of devil. They confessed that 
they dared not attack him, and again went back 
for more assistance. The Viceroy abused them as 
cowards, arrested the officers, despatched others 
again wdth peremptory orders to seize Drake, even 
if he was the devil, but by that time their ques- 
tionable visitor had flown. They found nothing, 
perhaps to their relief. 

A despatch went instantly across the Atlantic to 
Philip. One squadron was sent off from Cadiz to 
watch the Straits of Magellan, and another to patrol 
the Caribbean Sea. It was thought that Drake's 
third way was no seaway at all, that he meant to 
leave the Pelican at Darien, carry his plunder 
over the mountains, and build a ship at Honduras 



DRAKFS VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 99 

to take him home. His real idea was that he might 
hit off the passage to the north of which Frobisher 
and Davis thought they had found the eastern 
entrance. He stood on towards Cahfornia, picking 
up an occasional straggler in the China trade, with 
silk, porcelain, gold, and emeralds. Fresh water 
was a necessity. He put in at Guatulco for it, and 
his proceedings were humorously prompt. The 
alcaldes at Guatulco were in session trpng a batch 
of negroes. An English boat's crew appeared in 
court, tied the alcaldes hand and foot, and carried 
them ofi to the Pelican^ there to remain as hos- 
tages till the water-casks were filled. 

North again he fell in with a galleon carrying 
out a new Governor to the Philippines. The 
Governor was relieved of his boxes and his jewels, 
and then, says one of the party, ' Our General, 
thinking himself in respect of his private injuries 
received from the Spaniards, as also their contempt 
and indignities offered to our country and Prince, 
sufficiently satisfied and revenged, and supposing 
her Majesty would rest contented with this service, 
began to consider the best way home.' The first 
necessity was a complete overhaul of the ship. 
Before the days of copper sheathing weeds grew 
thick under water. Barnacles formed in clusters, 
stopping the speed, and sea- worms bored through 
the planking. Twenty thousand miles lay between 
the Pelican and Plymouth Sound, and Drake was 
not a man to run idle chances. Still holding his 

u 2 



loo ENGLISH SEAMEN 

north course till he had left the furthest Spanish 
settlement far to the south, he put into Canoas Bay 
in California, laid the Pelican ashore, set up forge 
and workshop, and repaired and re-rigged her with 
a month's labour from stem to stem. With every 
rope new set up and new canvas on every yard, he 
started again on April 16, 1579, and continued up 
the coast to Oregon. The air grew cold though it 
was summer. The men felt it from having been So 
long in the tropics, and dropped out of health. 
There was still no sign of a passage. If passage there 
was, Drake perceived that it must be of enormous 
length. Magellan's Straits, he guessed, would be 
watched for him, so he decided on the route by the 
Cape of Good Hope. In the Philippine ship he had 
found a chart of the Indian Archipelago. With the 
help of this and his own skill he hoped to find his 
way. He went down again to San Francisco, 
landed there, found the soil teeming with gold, 
made acquaintance with an Indian king who hated 
the Spaniards and wished to become an English 
subject. But Drake had no leisure to annex new 
territories. Avoiding the course from Mexico to 
the Philippines, he made a direct course to the 
Moluccas, and brought up again at the Island of 
Celebes. Here the Pelican was a second time 
docked and scraped. The crew had a month's rest 
among the fireflies and vampires of the tropical 
forest. Leaving Celebes, they entered on the most 
perilous part of the whole voyage. They wound 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD loi 

fcieir way among coral reefs and low islands 

scarcely visible above the water-line. In their 

cihart the only outlet marked into the Tudian Ocean 

^was by the Straits of Malacca. But Drake guessed 

xnghtly that there must be some nearer opening, 

^nd felt his way looking for it along the coast of 

-Java. Spite of all his care, he was once on the 

^dge of destruction. One evening as night was 

<3losing in a grating sound was heard under the 

JPelican^s keel. In another moment she was hard 

^nd fast on a reef. The breeze was Ught and the 

^ater smooth, or the world would have heard no 

more of Francis Drake. She lay immovable till 

daybreak. At dawn the position was seen not to be 

entirely desperate. Drake himself showed all the 

qualities of a great conunander. Cannon were 

thrown over and cargo that was not needed. In 

the afternoon, the wind changing, the hghtened 

vessel lifted off the rocks and was saved. The hull 

was uninjured, thanks to the Califomian repairs. 

All on board had behaved well with the one 

exception of Mr. Fletcher, the chaplain. Mr. 

Fletcher, instead of working like a man, had whined 

about Divine retribution for the execution of 

Doughty. 

For the moment Drake passed it over. A few 
days after, they passed out through the Straits of 
Sunda, where they met the great ocean swell, 
Homer's /xeya KVfia daXda-crrj^, and they knew then 
that all was well. 



I02 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

There was now time to call Mr. Fletcher to 
account. It was no business of the chaplain to 
discourage and dispirit men in a moment of danger, 
and a court was formed to sit upon him. An 
EngUsh captain on his own deck represents the 
sovereign, and is head of Church as well as State. 
Mr. Fletcher was brought to the forecastle, where 
Drake, sitting on a sea-chest with a pair of 
pantoufles in his hand, excommunicated him, pro- 
nounced him cut oflE from the Church of God, 
given over to the devil for the chastising of his 
flesh, and left him chained by the leg to a ring-bolt 
to repent of his cowardice. 

In the general good-humour punishment could 
not be of long duration. The next day the poor 
chaplain had his absolution and returned to his 
berth and his duty. The Pelican met with no 
more adventures. Sweeping in fine clear weather 
round the Cape of Good Hope, she touched once 
for water at Sierra Leone, and finally sailed in 
triumph into Plymouth Harbour, where she had 
been long given up for lost, having traced the first 
furrow round the globe. Winter had come home 
eighteen months before, but could report nothing. 
The news of the doings on the American coast had 
reached England through Madrid. The Spanish 
ambassador had been furious. It was known that 
Spanish squadrons had been sent in search. Com- 
plications would arise if Drake brought his plunder 
home, and timid politicians hoped that he was at 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 103 

the bottom of the sea. But here he was, actually 
arrived with a monarch's ransom in his hold. 

English sympathy with an extraordinary exploit 
is always irresistible. Shouts of applause rang 
through the country, and Elizabeth, every bit of 
her an Englishwoman, felt with her subjects. She 
sent for Drake to London, made him tell his story 
over and over again, and was never weary of 
hstening to him. As to injury to Spain, Philip 
had lighted a fresh insurrection in Ireland, which 
had cost her dearly in lives and money. For 
Philip to demand compensation of England on the 
score of justice was a thing to make the gods 
laugh. 

So thought the Queen. So unfortunately did 
not think some members of her Council, Lord 
Burghley among them. Mendoza was determined 
that Drake should be punished and the spoils dis- 
gorged, or else that he would force Elizabeth upon 
the world as the confessed protectress of piracy. 
Burghley thought that, as things stood, some 
satisfaction (or the form of it) would have to be 
made. 

Elizabeth hated paying back as heartily as 
FalstaflE, nor had she the least intention of throw- 
ing to the wolves a gallant Englishman, with whose 
achievements the world was ringing. She was 
obliged to allow the treasure to be registered by a 
responsible official, and an account rendered to 
Mendoza ; but for all that she meant to keep her 



I04 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

own share of the spoils. She meant, too, that 
Drake and his brave crew should not go unre- 
warded. Drake himself should have ten thousand 
pounds at least. 

Her action was eminently characteristic of her. 
On the score of real justice there was no doubt at 
all how matters stood between herself and Philip, 
who had tried to dethrone and kill her. 

The Pelican lay still at Plymouth with the bul- 
lion and jewels untouched. She directed that it 
should be landed and scheduled. She trusted the 
business to Edmund Tremayne, of Sydenham, a 
neighbouring magistrate, on whom she could 
depend. She told him not to be too inquisitive, 
and she allowed Drake to go back and arrange the 
cargo before the examination was made. Let me 
now read you a letter from Tremayne himself to 
Sir Francis Walsingham : — 

' To give you some understanding how I have 
proceeded with Mr. Drake : I have at no time 
entered into the account to know more of the value 
of the treasure than he made me acquainted with ; 
and to say truth I persuaded him to impart to me 
no more than need, for so I saw him commanded 
in her Majesty's behalf that he should reveal the 
certainty to no man living. I have only taken 
notice of so much as he has revealed, and the same 
I have seen to be weighed, registered, and packed. 
And to observe her Majesty's commands for the 
ten thousand pounds, we agreed he should take it 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 105 

out of the portion that was landed secretly, and ta 
remove the same out of the place before my son 
Henry and I should come to the weighing and 
registering of what was left ; and so it was done, 
and no creature living by me made privy to it but 
himself ; and myself no privier to it than as you 
may perceive by this. 

' I see nothing to charge Mr. Drake further than 
he is inclined to charge himself, and withal I must 
say he is inclined to advance the value to be 
delivered to her Majesty, and seeking in general 
to recompense all men that have been in the case 
dealers with him. As I dare take an oath, he will 
x*ather diminish his own portion than leave any 
of them unsatisfied. And for his mariners and 
followers I have seen here as eye-witness, and have 
lueard with my ears, such certain signs of goodwill 
as I cannot yet see that any of them will leave his 
C3ompany. The whole course of his voyage hath 
showed him to be of great valour; but my hap 
lias been to see some particulars, and namely in 
this discharge of his company, as doth assure me 
lihat he is a man of great government, and that 
by the rules of God and his book, so as proceed- 
ing on such foundation his doings cannot but 
prosper. ' 

The result of it all was that deductions were 
made from the capture equivalent to the property 
which Drake and Hawkins held themselves to have 
been treacherously plundered of at San Juan de 



io6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

UUoa, with perhaps other liberal allowances for 
the cost of recovery. An account on part of what 
remained was then given to Mendoza. It was not 
returned to him or to Philip, but was laid up in 
the Towner till the final settlement of PhiUp's and 
the Queen's claims on each other — the cost, for 
one thing, of the rebelhon in Ireland. Commis- 
sioners met and argued and sat on inefiectually till 
the Armada came and the discussion ended, and 
the talk of restitution was over. Meanwhile, 
opinion varied about Drake's own doings as it has 
varied since. Elizabeth listened spellbound to his 
adventures, sent for him to London again, and 
walked with him publicly about the parks and 
gardens. She gave him a second ten thousand 
pounds. The Pelican was sent round to Dept- 
ford; a royal banquet was held on board, Eliza- 
beth attended and Drake was knighted. Mendoza 
clamoured for the treasure in the Tower to be given 
up to him ; Walsingham wished to give it to the 
Prince of Orange ; Leicester and his party in the 
Council, who had helped to fit Drake out, thought 
it ought to be divided among themselves, and un- 
less Mendoza lies they offered to share it with 
him if he would agree to a private arrangement. 
Mendoza says he answered that he would give 
twice as much to chastise such a bandit as Drake. 
Ehzabeth thought it should be kept as a captured 
pawn in the game, and so in fact it remained after 
the deductions which we have seen had been made. 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 107 

Drake was lavish of his presents. He presented 
the Queen with a diamond cross and a coronet set 
with splendid emeralds. He gave Bromley, the 
Lord Chancellor, 800 dollars' worth of silver plate, 
and as much more to other members of the Council. 
The Queen wore her coronet on New Year's Day ; 
the Chancellor was content to decorate his side- 
board at the cost of the Catholic King. Burghley 
and Sussex decHned the splendid temptation ; they 
said they could accept no such precious gifts from 
a man whose fortune had been made by plunder. 

Burghley lived to see better into Drake's value. 
Meanwhile, what now are we, looking back over 
our history, to say of these things — the Channel 
privateering ; the seizure of Alva's army money ; 
the sharp practice of Hawkins with the Queen of 
Scots and King Philip ; or this amazing perform- 
ance of Sir Francis Drake in a vessel ilo larger 
than a second-rate yacht of a modern noble lord ? 

Eesolution, daring, professional skill, all his- 
torians allow to these men; but, Uke Burghley, 
they regard what they did as piracy, not much 
better, if at all better, than the later exploits of 
Morgan and Ejdd. So cried the Catholics who 
wished EHzabeth's ruin; so cried Lope de Vega 
and King Philip. In milder language the modern 
philosopher repeats the unfavourable verdict, rejoices 
that he lives in an age when such doings are 
impossible, and apologises faintly for the excesses 
of an imperfect age. May I remind the philosopher 



io8 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

that we live in an age when other things have also 
happily become impossible, and that if he and his 
friends were hable when they went abroad for their 
summer tours to be snapped by the familiars of the 
Inquisition, whipped, burnt alive, or sent to the 
galleys, he would perhaps think more leniently of 
any measures by which that respectable institution 
and its masters might be induced to treat philoso* 
phers with greater consideration ? 

Again, remember Dr. Johnson's warning, Beware 
of cant. In that intensely serious century men were 
more occupied with the realities than the forms of 
things. By encouraging rebelhon in England and 
Ireland, by burning so many scores of poor English 
seamen and merchants in fools' coats at Seville, 
the King of Spain had given Elizabeth a hundred 
occasions for declaring war against him. Situated 
as she was, with so many disaffected Catholic 
subjects, she could not begin a war on such a quar- 
rel. She had to use such resources as she had, 
and of these resources the best was a splendid race 
of men who were not afraid to do for her at their 
own risk what commissioned oflScers would and 
might have justly done had formal war been 
declared, men who defeated the national enemy 
with materials conquered from himself, who were 
devoted enough to dispense with the personal 
security which the sovereign's commission would 
have extended to prisoners of war, and face the 
certainty of being hanged if they were taken. 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 109 

Yes ; no doubt by the letter of the law of nations 
Drake and Hawkins were corsairs of the same stuff 
as Ulysses, as the rovers of Norway. But the 
common-sense of Europe saw through the form to 
the substance which lay below it, and the instinct 
of their countrymen gave them a place among 
the fighting heroes of England, from which I do 
not think they will be deposed by the eventual 
verdict of history. 



no ENGLISH SEAMEN 



LECTUEE V 

PARTIES IN THE STATE 

On December 21, 1585, a remarkable scene took 
place in the English House of Commons. The 
Prince of Orange, after many attempts had failed, 
had been successfully disposed of in the Low Coun- 
tries. A fresh conspiracy had just been discovered 
for a Catholic insurrection in England, supported 
by a foreign invasion ; the object of which was to 
dethrone Elizabeth and to give her crown to Mary 
Stuart. The Duke of Alva, at the time of the 
Eidolfi plot, had pointed out as a desirable pre- 
liminary, if the invasion was to succeed, the 
assassination of the Queen of England. The 
succession being undecided, he had calculated that 
the confusion would paralyse resistance, and the 
notorious favour with which Mary Stuart's preten- 
sions were regarded by a powerful English party 
would ensure her an easy victory were Elizabeth 
once removed. But this was an indispensable 
condition. It had become clear at last that so long 
as Elizabeth was alive Philip would not willingly 
sanction the landing of a Spanish army on English 
shores. Thus, among the more ardent Catholics^ 



PARTIES IN THE STATE iii 

especially the refugees at the Seminary at Eheims, 
a crown in heaven was held out to any spiritual 
knight-errant who would remove the obstacle. The 
enterprise itself was not a difficult one. Elizabeth 
was aware of her danger, but she was personally fear- 
less. She refused to distrust the Catholics. Her 
household was full of them. She admitted anyone 
to her presence who desired a private interview. 
JDr. Parry, a member of Parliament, primed by en- 
couragements from the Cardinal of Como and the 
"Vatican, had undertaken to risk his life to win the 
glorious prize. He introduced himself into the 
palace, properly provided with arms. He professed 
to have information of importance to give. The 
Queen received him repeatedly. Once he was alone 
"with her in the palace garden, and was on the 
point of killing her, when he was awed, as he said, 
hy the likeness to her father. Parry was discovered 
and hanged, but Elizabeth refused to take warning. 
When there were so many aspirants for the honour 
of removing Jezebel, and Jezebel was so easy of 
approach, it was felt that one would at last suc- 
ceed ; and the loyal part of the nation, led by Lord 
Burghley, formed themselves into an association to 
protect a life so vital to them and apparently so 
indifferent to herself. 

The subscribers bound themselves to pursue to 
the death all manner of persons who should attempt 
or consent to anything to the harm of her Majesty's 
person ; never to allow or submit to any pretended 



112 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

successor by whom or for whom such detestable 
act should be attempted or committed ; but to 
pursue such persons to death and act the utmost 
revenge upon them. 

The bond in its first form was a visible creation 
of despair. It implied a condition of things in 
which order would have ceased to exist. The 
lawyers, who, it is curious to observe, were 
generally in Mary Stuart's interest, vehemently 
objected ; yet so passionate was public feeling 
that it was signed throughout the kingdom, and 
Parliament was called to pass an Act which would 
secure the same object. Mary Stuart, at any rate, 
was not to benefit by the crimes either of herself or 
her admirers. It was provided that if the realm 
was invaded, or a rebellion instigated by or for any 
one pretending a title to the crown after the Queen's 
death, such pretender should be disquahfied for 
ever. In the event of the Queen's assassination the 
government was to devolve on a Committee of 
Peers and Privy Councillors, who were to examine 
the particulars of the murder and execute the 
perpetrators and their accomplices ; while, with a 
significant allusion, all Jesuits and seminary priests 
were required to leave the country instantly, under 
pain of death. 

The House of Commons was heaving vnih. 
emotion when the Act was sent up to the Peers. 
To give expression to their burning feelings Sir 
Christopher Hatton proposed that before they 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 113 

separated they should join him in a prayer for 
the Queen's preservation. The 400 members 
all rose, and knelt on the floor of the House, re- 
peating Hatton's words after him, sentence by 
sentence. 

Jesuits and seminary priests ! Attempts have 
l)een made to justify the conspiracies against 
lEUzabeth from what is called the persecution of 
"the innocent enthusiasts who came from Eheims 
to preach the Catholic faith to the English people. 
Popular writers and speakers dwell on the execu- 
tions of Campian and his friends as worse than the 
Smithfield burnings, and amidst general admira- 
tion and approval these martyred saints have been 
lately canonised. Their mission, it is said, was 
purely religious. Was it so ? The chief article in 
the religion which they came to teach was the duty 
of obedience to the Pope, who had excommunicated 
the Queen, had absolved her subjects from their 
allegiance, and, by a relaxation of the Bull, had 
permitted them to pretend to loyalty ad illud 
tempus^ till a Cathohc army of deliverance should 
arrive. A Pope had sent a legate to Ireland, and 
was at that moment stirring up a bloody insur- 
rection there. 

But what these seminary priests were, and what 
their object was, will best appear from an account 
of the condition of England, drawn up for the use 
of the Pope and Philip, by Father Parsons, who was 
himself at the head of the mission. The date of it 



114 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

is 1685, almost simultaneous with the scene in 
Parliament which I have just been describing. 
The English refugees, from Cardinal Pole down- 
wards, were the most active and passionate 
preachers of a Catholic crusade against England. 
They failed, but they have revenged themselves in 
history. Pole, Sanders, Allen, and Parsons have 
coloured all that we suppose ourselves to know of 
Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. What I am about to 
read to you does not diflEer essentially from what we 
have already heard from these persons ; but it is 
new, and, being intended for practical guidance, is 
complete in its way. It comes from the Spanish 
archives, and is not therefore open to suspicion. 
Parsons, as you know, was a Fellow of Balliol 
before his conversion ; AUen was a Fellow of Oriel, 
and Sanders of New College. An Oxford Church 
of England education is an excellent things and 
beautiful characters have been formed in the 
Catholic universities abroad ; but as the elements 
of dynamite are innocent in themselves, yet when 
fused together produce effects no one would have 
dreamt of, so Oxford and Eome, when they have 
run together, have always generated a somewhat 
furious compound. 
/ Parsons describes his statement as a ' brief note 
on the present condition of England,' from which 
may be inferred the ease and opportuneness of the 
holy enterprise. ' England,' he says, ' contains 
fifty-two counties, of which forty are well inclined 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 115 

to the Catholic faith. Heretics in these are few, 
and are hated by all ranks. The remaining twelve 
are infected more or less, but even in these the 
Catholics are in the majority. Divide England 
into three parts ; two-thirds at least are Catholic 
at heart, though many conceal their convictions in 
fear of the Queen. English Catholics are of two 
sorts — one which makes an open profession regard- 
Jess of consequences, the other beKeving at the 
lottom, but unwilling to risk life or fortune, and so 
submitting outwardly to the heretic laws, but as 
-eager as the Catholic confessors for redemption 
from slavery. 

' The Queen and her party,' he goes on, ' more 
fear these secret Catholics than those who wear 
their colours openly. The latter they can fine, 
disarm, and make innocuous. The others, being 
outwardly compliant, cannot be touched, nor can 
any precaution be taken against their rising when 
the day of divine vengeance shall arrive. 

' The counties specially Catholic are the most 
warhke, and contain harbours and other con- 
veniences for the landing of an invading army. 
The north towards the Scotch border has been 
trained in constant fighting. The Scotch nobles 
on the other side are CathoKc and will lend their \ 
help. So will all Wales. 

' The inhabitants of the midland and southern 
provinces, where the taint is deepest, are indolent 
and cowardly, and do not know what war means. 

I 2 



ii6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

The towns are more corrupt than the country 
districts. But the strength of England does not 
lie, as on the Continent, in towns and cities. The 
town population are merchants and craftsmen, 
rarely or never nobles or magnates. 

' The nobihty, who have the real power, reside 
with their retinues in castles scattered over the 
land. The wealthy yeomen are strong and honest, 
all attached to the ancient faith, and may be counted 
on when an attempt is made for the restoration of 
it. The knights and gentry are generally well 
aflEected also, and will be well to the front. Many 
of their sons are being now educated in our semi- 
naries. Some are in exile, but all, whether at home 
or abroad, will be active on our side. 

' Of the great peers, marquises, earls, viscounts, 
and barons, part are mth us, part against us. But 
the latter sort are new creations, whom the Queen 
has promoted either for heresy or as her personal 
lovers, and therefore universally abhorred. 

' The premier peer of the old stock is the Earl of 
Arundel, son and heir of the late Duke of Norfolk, 
whom she has imprisoned because he tried to 
escape out of the realm. This earl is entirely 
CathoHc, as well as his brothers and kinsmen ; and 
they have powerful vassals who are eager to revenge 
the injury of their lord. The Earl of Northumber- 
land and his brothers are Catholics. They too 
have family wrongs to repay, their father having 
been this year murdered in the Tower, and they 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 117 

have placed themselves at my disposal. The Earl 
of Worcester and his heir hate heresy, and are 
devoted to us with all their dependents. The Earls 
of Cumberland and Southampton and Viscount 
Montague are faithful, and have a large following. 
Besides these we have many of the barons — Dacre, 
Morley, Vaux, Windsor, Wharton, Lovelace, Stour- 
ton, and others besides. The Earl of Westmore- 
land, with Lord Paget and Sir Francis Englefield, 
who reside abroad, have been incredibly earnest in 
promoting our enterprise. With such support, it 
is impossible that we can fail. These lords and 
gentlemen, when they see eflficient help coming to 
them, will certainly rise, and for the following 
reasons : — 

' 1. Because some of the principals among them 
have given me their promise. 

' 2. Because, on hearing that Pope Pius intended 
to excommunicate and depose the Queen sixteen 
years ago, many Catholics did rise. They only 
failed because no support was sent them, and the 
Pope's sentence had not at that time been actually 
pubKshed. Now, when the Pope has spoken and 
help is certain, there is not a doubt how they will 
act. 

' 3. Because the Catholics are now much more 
numerous, and have received daily instruction in 
their reKgion from our priests. There is now no 
orthodox Catholic in the whole realm who supposes 
that he is any longer bound in conscience to obey 



ii8 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

the Queen. Books for the occasion have been 
written and pubhshed by us, in which we prove 
that it is not only lawful for Catholics, but their 
positive duty, to fight against the Queen and heresy 
when the Pope bids them ; and these books are so 
greedily read among them that when the time 
comes they are certain to take arms. 

' 4. The Catholics in these late years have shown 
their real feeling in the martyrdoms of priests and 
laymen, and in attempts made by several of them 
against the person and State of the Queen. Various 
Catholics have tried to kill her at the risk of their 
own lives, and are still trying. 

'6. We have three hundred priests dispersed 
among the houses of the nobles and honest gentry. 
Every day we add to their number ; and these 
priests will direct the consciences and actions of 
the Catholics at the great crisis. 

' 6. They have been so harried and so worried 
that they hate the heretics worse than they hate 
the Turks. 

' Should any of them fear the introduction of a 
Spanish army as dangerous to their national 
liberties, there is an easy way to satisfy their 
scruples. Let it be openly declared that the 
enterprise is undertaken in the name of the Pope, 
and there will be no more hesitation. We have 
ourselves prepared a book for their instruction, to 
be issued at the right moment. If his Holiness 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 119 

desires to see it we will have it translated into 
Latin for his use. 

'Before the enterprise is undertaken the sen- 
tence of excommunication and deposition ought to 
be reissued, with special clauses. 

' It must be published in all adjoining Catholic 
countries ; all Cathohc kings and princes must be 
admonished to forbid every description of inter- 
course with the pretended Queen and her heretic 
subjects, and themselves especially to make or 
observe no treaties with her, to send no embassies 
to her and admit none ; to render no help to her of 
any sort or kind. 

' Besides those who will be our friends for re- 
ligion's sake we shall have others with us — neutrals 
or heretics of milder sort, or atheists, with whom 
England now abounds, who will join us in the 
interest of the Queen of Scots. Among them are 
the Marquis of Winchester, the Earls of Shrews- 
bury, Derby, Oxford, Eutland, and several other 
peers. The Queen of Scots herself will be of in- 
finite assistance to us in securing these. She 
knows who are her secret friends. She has been 
able so far, and we trust will always be able, to 
communicate with them. She will see that they 
are ready at the right time. She has often written 
to me to say that she hopes that she will be able 
to escape when the time comes. In her last letter 
she urges me to be vehement with his Holiness in 
pushing on the enterprise, and bids him have no 



I20 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

concern for her own safety. She behoves that she 
can care for herself. If not, she says she will lose 
her life wiUingly in a cause so sacred. 

* The enemies that we shall have to deal with 
are the more determined heretics whom we call 
Puritans, and certain creatures of the Queen, the 
Earls of Leicester and Huntingdon, and a few^ 
others. They will have an advantage in the money 
in the Treasury, the pubKc arms and stores, and the 
army and navy, but none of them have ever seen a 
camp. The leaders have been nuzzled in love- 
making and Court pleasures, and they will all fly 
at the first shock of war. They have not a man 
who can command in the field. In the whole 
realm there are but two fortresses which could 
stand a three days' siege. The people are ener- 
vated by long peace, and, except a few who have 
served with the heretics in Flanders, cannot bear 
their arms. Of those few some are dead and 
some have deserted to the Prince of Parma, a 
clear proof of the real disposition to revolt. There 
is abundance of food and cattle in the country, all 
of which will be at our service and cannot be kept 
from us. Everywhere there are safe and roomy 
harbours, almost all undefended. An invading 
force can be landed with ease, and there will be 
no lack of local pilots. Fifteen thousand trained 
soldiers will be sufficient, aided by the Catholic 
English, though, of course, the larger the force, 
particularly if it includes cavalry, the quicker the 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 121 

work will be done and the less the expense. 
Practically there will be nothing to overcome save 
an unwarhke and undiscipKned mob. 

' Sixteen times England has been invaded. 
Twice only the native race have repelled the 
attacking force. They have been defeated on 
every other occasion, and with a cause so holy and 
just as ours we need not fear to fail. The ex- 
penses shall be repaid to his Holiness and the 
Catholic King out of the property of the heretics 
and the Protestant clergy. There will be ample in 
these resources to compensate all who give us their 
hand. But the work must be done promptly. 
Delay will be infinitely dangerous. If we put oflE, 
as we have done hitherto, the Cathohcs will be 
tired out and reduced in numbers and strength. 
The nobles and priests now in exile, and able to be 
of such service, will break down in poverty. The 
Queen of Scots may be executed or die a natural 
death, or something may happen to the Catholic 
King or his Holiness. The Queen of England may 
herself die, a heretic Government may be recon- 
structed under a heretic successor, the young 
Scotch king or some other, and our case will then 
be desperate ; whereas if we can prevent this and 
save the Queen of Scots there will be good hope of 
converting her son and reducing the whole island 
to the obedience of the faith. Now is the moment. 
The French Government cannot interfere. The 
Duke of Guise will help us for the sake of the faith 



122 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

and for his kinswoman. The Turks are quiet. The 
Church was never stronger or more united. Part of 
Italy is under the Catholic King ; the rest is in league 
with his Holiness. The revolt in the Low Countries 
is all but crushed. The sea provinces are on the 
point of surrendering. If they give up the contest 
their harbours will be at our service for the inva- 
sion. If not, the way to conquer them is to con- 
quer England. 

'I need not urge how much it imports his 
Holiness to undertake this glorious work. He, 
supremely wise as he is, knows that from this 
Jezebel and her supporters come all the perils 
which disturb the Christian world. He knows 
that heretical depravity and all our other miseries 
can only end when this woman is chastised. Ee- 
verence for his Holiness and love for my afflicted 
country force me to speak. I submit to his most 
holy judgment myself and my advice.' 

The most ardent Catholic apologist will hardly 
maintain, in the face of this document, that the 
English Jesuits and seminary priests were the 
innocent missionaries of religion which the modem 
enemies of Elizabeth's Government describe them. 
Father Parsons, the writer of it, was himself the 
leader and director of the Jesuit invasion, and 
cannot be supposed to have misrepresented the 
purpose for which they had been sent over. The 
point of special interest is the account which he 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 123 

gives of the state of parties and general feeling in 
the EngHsh people. Was there that wide disposi- 
tion to welcome an invading army in so large a 
majority of the nation ? The question is supposed 
to have been triumphantly answered three years 
later, when it is asserted that the difference of 
creed was forgotten, and CathoKcs and Protestants 
bought side by side for the Hberties of England. 
IBut, in the first place, the circumstances were 
changed. The Queen of Scots no longer lived, 
and the success of the Armada impUed a foreign 
sovereign. But, next, the experiment was not tried. 
The battle was fought at sea, by a fleet four-fifths 
of which was composed of Protestant adventurers, 
fitted out and manned by those zealous Puritans 
whose fidehty to the Queen Parsons himself ad- 
mitted. Lord Howard may have been an Anglo- 
Catholic ; Eoman Catholic he never was ; but he 
and his brother were the only loyalists in the House 
of Howard. Arundel and the rest of his kindred 
were all that Parsons claimed for them. How the 
country levies would have behaved had Parma 
landed is still uncertain. It is likely that if the 
Spanish army had gained a first success, there 
might have been some who would have behaved as 
Sir William Stanley did. It is observable that 
Parsons mentions Leicester and Huntingdon as 
the only powerful peers on whom the Queen could 
rely, and Leicester, otherwise the unfittest man in 
her dominions, she chose to command her land army. 



124 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

The Duke of Alva and his master Philip, 
both of them distrusted political priests. Pohtical 
priests, they said, did not understand the facts of 
things. Theological enthusiasm made them cre- 
dulous of what they wished. But Father Parsons's 
estimate is confirmed in all its parts by the letters 
of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London. 
Mendoza was himself a soldier, and his first duty 
was to learn the real truth. It may be taken as 
certain that, with the Queen of Scots still alive to 
succeed to the throne, at the time of the scene in 
the House of Commons, with which I began this 
lecture, the great majority of the country party 
disUked the Eeformers, and were looking forward 
to the accession of a Catholic sovereign, and as a 
consequence to a religious revolution. 

It explains the difficulty of EKzabeth's posi- 
tion and the inconsistency of her pohtical action. 
Burghley, Walsingham, Mildmay, Knolles, the 
elder Bacon, were beheving Protestants, and would 
have had her put herself openly at the head of a 
Protestant European league. They beheved that 
right and justice were on their side, that their side 
was God's cause, as they called it, and that God 
would care for it. Elizabeth had no such complete 
conviction. She disliked dogmatism, Protestant 
as well as Catholic. She ridiculed Mr. Cecil and 
his brothers in Christ. She thought, hke Erasmus, 
that the articles of faith, for which men were so 
eager to kill one another, were subjects which they 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 125 

knew very little about, and that every man might 
think what he would on such matters without 
injury to the commonwealth. To become ' head 
of the name ' would involve open war ^dth the 
CathoUc powers. War meant war taxes, which 
more than half her subjects would resent and resist. 
Eeligion as she understood it was a development 
of law — ^the law of moral conduct. You could not 
have two laws in one country, and you could not 
have two religions ; but the outward form mattered 
comparatively little. The people she ruled over 
were divided about these forms. They were mainly 
fools, and if she let them each have chapels and 
churches of their own, molehills would become 
mountains, and the congregations would go from 
arguing into fighting. With Parliament to help 
her, therefore, she established a Liturgy, in which 
those who wished to find the Mass could hear the 
Mass, while those who wanted predestination and 
justification by faith could find it in the Articles. 
Both could meet under a common roof, and use a 
common service, if they would only be reasonable. 
If they would not be reasonable, the Catholics 
might have their own ritual in their own houses, 
and would not be interfered with. 

This system continued for the first eleven years 
of Elizabeth's reign. No Catholic, she could 
proudly say, had ever during that time been 
molested for his belief. There was a small fine 
for non-attendance at church, but even this was 



126 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

rarely levied, and by the confession of the Jesuits 
the Queen's policy was succeeding too well. Sen- 
sible men began to see that the differences of 
religion were not things to quarrel over. Faith was 
growing languid. The elder generation, who had 
lived through the Edward and Mary revolutions, 
were satisfied to be left undisturbed ; a new gene- 
ration was growing up, with new ideas; and so 
the Church of Eome bestirred itself. EKzabeth 
was excommunicated. The cycle began of intrigue 
and conspiracy, assassination plots, and Jesuit 
invasions. Punishments had to follow, and in 
spite of herself Elizabeth was driven into what the 
Catholics could call religious persecution. Ee- 
ligious it was not, for the seminary priests were 
missionaries of treason. But religious it was made 
to appear. The English gentleman who wished to 
remain loyal, without forfeiting his faith, was taught 
to see that a sovereign under the Papal curse had 
no longer a claim on his allegiance. If he dis- 
obeyed the Pope, he had ceased to be a member of 
the Church of Christ. The Papal party grew in 
coherence, while, opposed to them as their purpose 
came in view, the Protestants, who at first had 
been incKned to Lutheranism, adopted the deeper 
and sterner creed of Calvin and Geneva. The 
memories of the Marian cruelties revived again. 
They saw themselves threatened with a return to 
stake and fagot. They closed their ranks and 
resolved to die rather than submit again to Anti- 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 127 

Christ. They might be inferior in numbers. A 
pUbiscite in England at that moment would have 
sent Burghley and Walsingham to the scaffold. 
But the Lord could save by few as well as by 
many. Judah had but two tribes out of the 
twelve, but the words of the men of Judah were 
fiercer than the words of Israel. 

One great mistake had been made by Parsons. 
He could not estimate what he could not under- 
stand. He admitted that the inhabitants of the 
towns were mainly heretic — London, Bristol, 
Plymouth, and the rest — but he despised them as 
merchants, craftsmen, mean persons who had no 
heart to fight in them. Nothing is more remarkable 
in the history of the sixteenth century than the 
-effect of Calvinism in levelling distinctions of rank 
and in steeling and ennobling the character of 
common men. In Scotland, in the Low Countries, 
in France, there was the same phenomenon. In 
Scotland, the Kirk was the creation of the preachers 
and the people, and peasants and workmen dared 
to stand in the field against belted knights and 
barons, who had trampled on their fathers for 
centuries. The artisans of the Low Countries had 
for twenty years defied the whole power of Spain. 
The Huguenots were not a fifth part of the French 
nation, yet defeat could never dishearten them. 
Again and again they forced crown and nobles to 
make terms with them. It was the same in England. 
The allegiance to their feudal leaders dissolved 



128 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

into a higher obUgation to the King of kings, whose 
elect they beUeved themselves to be. Election to 
them was not a theological phantasm, but an 
enlistment in the army of God. A little flock they 
might be, but they were a dangerous people to deal 
with, most of all in the towns on the sea. The sea 
was the element of the Eeformers. The Popes had 
no jurisdiction over the \\4nds and waves. Kochelle 
was the citadel of the Huguenots. The English 
merchants and mariners had wrongs of their own, 
perpetually renewed, which fed the bitterness of 
their indignation. Touch where they w:ould in 
Spanish ports, the inquisitor's hand was on their 
ships' crews, and the crews, unless they denied 
their faith, were handed over to the stake or the 
galleys. The Calvinists are accused of intolerance. 
I fancy that even in these humane and enlightened 
days we should not be very tolerant if the King of 
Dahomey were to burn every European visitor to 
his dominions who would not worship Mumbo 
Jumbo. The Duke of Alva was not very merciful 
to heretics, but he tried to bridle the zeal of the 
Holy Office in burning the English seamen. Even 
Philip himself remonstrated. It was to no purpose. 
The Holy Office said they would think about it, but 
concluded to go on. I am not the least surprised 
if the English seamen were intolerant. I should be 
very much surprised if they had not been. The 
Queen could not protect them. They had to protect 
themselves as they could, and make Spanish vessels. 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 129 

when they could catch them, pay for the iniquities 
of their rulers. 

With such a temper rising on both sides, 
Elizabeth's policy had but a poor chance. She 
still hoped that the better sense of mankind would 
keep the doctrinal enthusiasts in order. Elizabeth 
wished her subjects would be content to live 
together in unity of spirit, if not in unity of theory, 
in the bond of peace, not hatred, in righteousness 
of life, not in orthodoxy preached by stake and 
gibbet. She was content to wait and to persevere. 
She refused to declare war. War would tear the 
world in pieces. She knew her danger. She knew 
that she was in constant peril of assassination. 
She knew that if the Protestants were crushed in 
Scotland, in France, and in the Low Countries, 
her own turn would follow. To protect insurgents 
avowedly would be to justify insurrection against 
herself. But what she would not do openly she 
would do secretly. What she would not do herself 
she let her subjects do. Thousands of English 
volunteers fought in Flanders for the States, and 
in France for the Huguenots. When the English 
Treasury was shut to the entreaties of Coligny or 
William of Orange the London citizens untied their 
purse-strings. Her friends in Scotland fared ill. 
They were encouraged by promises which were not 
observed, because to observe them might bring on 
war. They committed themselves for her sake. 
They fell one after another — Murray, Morton, 



I30 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Gowrie — into bloody graves. Others took their 
places and struggled on. The Scotch Reformation 
was saved. Scotland was not allowed to open its 
arms to an invading army to strike England across 
the Border. But this was held to be their sufficient 
recompense. They cared for their cause as well as 
for the English Queen, and they had their reward. 
If they saved her they saved their own country. 
She too did not lie on a bed of roses. To prevent 
open war she was exposing her own life to the 
assassin. At any moment a pistol-shot or a stab 
with a dagger might add Elizabeth to the list of 
victims. She knew it, yet she went on upon her 
own policy, and faced in her person her own share 
of the risk. One thing only she did. If she would 
not defend her friends and her subjects as Queen 
of England, she left them free to defend themselves. 
She allowed traitors to be hanged when they were 
caught at their work. She allowed the merchants 
to fit out their privateer fleets, to defend at their 
own cost the shores of England, and to teach the 
Spaniards to fear their vengeance. 

But how long was all this to last ? How long 
were loyal citizens to feel that they were living over 
a loaded mine — throughout their own country, 
throughout the Continent, at Rome and at Madrid, 
at Brussels and at Paris, a legion of conspirators 
were driving their shafts under the English 
commonwealth. The Queen might be indifferent 
to her own danger, but on the Queen's life hung 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 131 

the peace of the whole reahn. A stroke of a 
poniard, a touch of a trigger, and swords would 
be flying from their scabbards in every county ; 
England would become, Uke France, one wild scene 
of anarchy and civil war. No successor had been 
named. The Queen refused to hear a successor 
declared. Mary Stuart's hand had been in every 
plot since she crossed the Border. Twice the House 
of Commons had petitioned for her execution. 
EUzabeth would neither touch her Ufe nor allow 
her hopes of the crown to be taken from her. The 
Bond of Association was but a remedy of despair, 
and the Act of ParUament would have passed for 
little in the tempest which would immediately 
rise. The agony reached a height when the fatal 
news came from the Netherlands that there at last 
assassination had done its work. The Prince of 
Orange, after many failures, had been finished, and 
a Ubel was found in the Palace at Westminster 
exhorting the ladies of the household to provide a 
Judith among themselves to rid the world of the 
EngUsh Holofernes. 

One part of Ehzabeth's subjects, at any rate, 
were not disposed to sit down in patience under the 
eternal nightmare. From Spain was to come the 
army of deUverance for which the Jesuits were so 
passionately longing. To the Spaniards the Pope 
was looking for the execution of the Bull of Depo- 
sition. Father Parsons had left out of his estimate 

K 2 



i 



132 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

the Protestant adventurers of London and Ply- 
mouth, who, besides their creed and their patriot- 
ism, had their private wrongs to revenge. Philip 
might talk of peace, and perhaps in weariness might 
at times seriously wish for it ; but between the 
Englishmen whose life was on the ocean and the 
Spanish Inquisition, which had burned so many of 
them, there was no peace possible. To them, Spain 
was the natural enemy. Among the daring spirits 
who had sailed with Drake round the globe, who 
had waylaid the Spanish gold ships, and startled 
the world with their exploits, the joy of whose lives 
had been to fight Spaniards wherever they could 
meet with them, there was but one wish — for an 
honest open war. The great galleons were to them 
no objects of terror. The Spanish naval power 
seemed to them a ' Colossus stuffed with clouts.' 
They were. Protestants all of them, but their theo- 
logy was rather practical than speculative. If 
Italians and Spaniards chose to believe in the 
Mass, it was not any affair of theirs. Their quarrel 
was with the insolent pretence of Catholics to force 
their creed on others with sword and cannon. The 
spirit which was working in them was the genius 
of freedom. On their own element they felt that 
they could be the spiritual tjrrants' masters. But 
as things were going, rebellion was likely to break 
out at home ; their homesteads might be burning, 
their country overrun with the Prince of Parma's 
army, the Inquisition at their own doors, and a 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 133 

Catholic sovereign bringing back the fagots of 
Smithfield. 

The Reformation at its origin was no introduc- 
tion of novel heresies. It was a revolt of the laity 
of Europe against the profligacy and avarice of the 
clergy. The popes and cardinals pretended to be 
the representatives of Heaven. When called to 
account for abuse of their powers, they had behaved 
precisely as mere corrupt human kings and aristo- 
cracies behave. They had intrigued; they had 
excommunicated ; they had set nation against 
nation, sovereigns against their subjects ; they had 
encouraged assassination; they had made them- 
selves infamous by horrid massacres, and had taught 
one half of foolish Christendom to hate the other. 
The hearts of the poor English seamen whose com- 
irades had been burnt at Seville to make a Spanish 
lioliday, thrilled with a sacred determination to end 
such scenes. The purpose that was in them broke 
into a wild war-music, as the wind harp swells and 
screams under the breath of the storm. I found 
in the Eecord Office an unsigned letter of some 
inspired old sea-dog, written in a bold round hand 
and addressed to Elizabeth. The ships' companies 
which in summer served in Philip's men-of-war 
went in winter in thousands to catch cod on the 
Banks of Newfoundland. ' Give me five vessels,' 
the writer said, ^ and I will go out and sink them 
all, and the galleons shall rot in Cadiz Harbour for 
want of hands to sail them. But decide. Madam, 



134 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

and decide quickly. Time flies, and will not return. 
The wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers 
of death,' 

The Queen did not decide. The five ships were 
not sent, and the poor Castilian sailors caught their 
cod in peace. But in spite of herself Elizabeth 
was driven forward by the tendencies of things. 
The death of the Prince of Orange left the Statea 
without a Government. The Prince of Parma 
was pressing them hard. Without a leader they 
were lost. They offered themselves to Elizabeth, 
to be incorporated in the Enghsh Empire. They 
said that if she refused they must either submit 
to Spain or become provinces of France. The 
Netherlands, whether Spanish or French, would 
be equally dangerous to England. The Nether- 
lands once brought back under the Pope, England's 
turn would come next ; while to accept the pro- 
posal meant instant and desperate war, both with 
France and Spain too — for France would never 
allow England again to gain a foot on the Conti- 
nent. Ehzabeth knew not what to do. She would 
and she would not. She did not accept ; she did 
not refuse. It was neither No nor Yes. Philip, 
who was as fond of indirect ways as herself, pro- 
posed to quicken her irresolution. 

The harvest had failed in GaUcia, and the popu- 
lation were starving. England grew more com 
than she wanted, and, under a special promise that 
the crews should not be molested, a fleet of com- 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 135 

traders had gone with cargoes of grain to Coruna, 
Bilbao, and Santander. The King of Spain, on 
hearing that EUzabeth was treating with the States, 
issued a sudden order to seize the vessels, confis- 
cate the cargoes, and imprison the men. The 
order was executed. One EngUsh ship only was 
lucky enough to escape by the adroitness of her 
conmiander. The Primrose^ of London, lay in 
Bilbao Koads with a captain and fifteen hands. 
The mayor, on receiving the order, came on board 
to look over the ship. He then went on shore for 
a sufficient force to carry out the seizure. After 
he was gone the captain heard of the fate which 
was intended for him. The mayor returned with 
two boatloads of soldiers, stepped up the ladder, 
touched the captain on the shoulder, and told him 
he was a prisoner. The Englishmen snatched pike 
and cutlass, pistol and battleaxe, killed seven or 
eight of the Spanish boarders, threw the rest over- 
board, and flung stones on them as they scrambled 
into their boats. The mayor, who had fallen into 
the sea, caught a rope and was hauled up when 
the fight was over. The cable was cut, the sails 
hoisted, and in a few minutes the Primrose was 
under way for England, with the mayor of Bilbao 
below the hatches. No second vessel got away. 
If PhiUp had meant to frighten Elizabeth he could 
not have taken a worse means of doing it, for he 
had exasperated that particular part of the English 
population which was least afraid of him. He had 



136 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

broken faith besides, and had seized some hundreds 
of merchants and sailors who had gone merely to 
reUeve Spanish distress. EUzabeth, as usual, would 
not act herself. She sent no ships from her own 
navy to demand reparation ; but she gave the 
adventurers a free hand. The London and Ply- 
mouth citizens determined to read Spain a lesson 
which should make an impression. They had the 
worst fears for the fate of the prisoners ; but if they 
could not save, they could avenge them. Sir 
Francis Drake, who wished for nothing better than 
to be at work again, volunteered his services, and 
a fleet was collected at Plymouth of twenty-five 
sail, every one of them fitted out by private enter- 
prise. No finer armament, certainly no better- 
equipped armament, ever left the EngUsh shores. 
The expenses were, of course, enormous. Of sea- 
men and soldiers there were between two and three 
thousand. Drake's name was worth an army. 
The cost was to be recovered out of the expedition 
somehow ; the Spaniards were to be made to pay 
for it ; but how or when was left to Drake's judg- 
ment. This time there was no second in command 
sent by the friends of Spain to hang upon his arm. 
By universal consent he had the absolute com- 
mand. His instructions were merely to inquire 
at Spanish ports into the meaning of the arrest. 
Beyond that he was left to go where he pleased 
and do what he pleased on his own responsibility. 
The Queen said frankly that if it proved convenient 



.^•.1 



PARTIES IN THE STATE 137 

she intended to disown him. Drake had no objection 
to being disowned, so he could teach the Spaniards 
to be more careful how they handled Englishmen. 
What came of it will be the subject of the next 
lecture. Father Parsons said the Protestant traders 
of England had grown eflEeminate and dared not 
fight. In the ashes of their own smoking cities 
the Spaniards had to learn that Father Parsons 
had misread his countrymen. If Drake had been 
given to heroics he might have left Virgil's lines 
inscribed above the broken arms of Castile at St. 
Domingo : 

En ego victa situ quam veri effeta senectus 
Arma inter regum falsa formidine ludit : 
Eespice ad bsec. 



138 ENGLISH SEAMEN 



LECTUEE VI 

THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 

Queen Elizabeth and her brother-in-law of Spain 
were reluctant champions of opposing principles. 
In themselves they had no wish to quarrel, but 
each was driven forward by fate and circumstance 
— Phihp by the genius of the Catholic religion, 
Elizabeth by the enthusiasts for freedom and by 
the advice of statesmen who saw no safety for her 
except in daring. Both wished for peace, and 
refused to see that peace was impossible ; but both 
were compelled to yield to their subjects' eager- 
ness. Philip had to threaten England with inva- 
sion ; EHzabeth had to show Philip that England 
had a long arm, which Spanish wisdom would 
do well to fear. It was a singular position. 
Philip had outraged orthodoxy and dared the anger 
of Eome by maintaining an ambassador at Eliza- 
beth's Court after her excommunication. He had 
laboured for a reconciUation with a sincerity which 
his secret letters make it impossible to doubt. He 
had condescended even to sue for it) in spite of 
Drake and the voyage of the Pelican; yet he 
had helped the Pope to set Ireland in a flame. He 
had encouraged Elizabeth's Catholic subjects in 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 139 

conspiracy after conspiracy. He had approved of 
attempts to dispose of her as he had disposed of 
the Prince of Orange. Elizabeth had retaUated, 
though with half a heart, by letting her soldiers 
volunteer into the service of the revolted Nether- 
lands, by permitting Enghsh privateers to plunder 
the Spanish colonies, seize the gold ships, and 
revenge their own wrongs. Each, perhaps, had 
wished to show the other what an open war would 
cost them both, and each drew back when war 
appeared inevitable. 

Events went their way. Holland and Zeeland, 
driven to extremity, had petitioned for incorpora- 
tion with England ; as a counter-stroke and a warn- 
ing, Philip had arrested the English corn ships 
and imprisoned the owners and the crews. Her 
own fleet was nothing. The safety of the English 
shores depended on the spirit of the adventurers, 
and she could not afford to check the anger with 
which the news was received. To accept the offer 
of the States was war, and war she would not have. 
Herself, she would not act at all ; but in her usual 
way she might let her subjects act for themselves, 
and plead, as Philip pleaded in excuse for the 
Inquisition, that she could not restrain them. And 
thus it was that in September 1686, Sir Francis 
Drake found himself with a fleet of twenty-five 
privateers and 2,600 men who had volunteered to 
serve with him under his own command. He had 
no distinct commission. The expedition had been 



I40 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

fitted out as a private undertaking. Neither officers 
nor crews had been engaged for the service of the 
Crown. They received no wages. In the eye of 
the law they were pirates. They were going on 
their own account to read the King of Spain a 
necessary lesson and pay their expenses at the 
King of Spain's cost. Young Protestant England 
had taken fire. The name of Drake set every 
Protestant heart burning, and hundreds of gallant 
gentlemen had pressed in to join. A grandson of 
Burghley had come, and Edward Winter the 
Admiral's son, and Francis Knolles the Queen's 
cousin, and Martin Frobisher, and Christopher Car- 
lile. Philip Sidney had wished to make one also 
in the glory ; but Phihp Sidney was needed else- 
where. The Queen's consent had been won from 
her at a bold interval in her shifting moods. The 
hot fit might pass away, and Burghley sent Drake a 
hint to be off before her humour changed. No word 
was said. On the morning of the 14th of September 
the signal flag was flying from Drake's maintop 
to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted 
after, ' was not the most assured of her Majesty's 
perseverance to let them go forward.' Past Ushant 
he would be beyond reach of recall. With light 
winds and calms they drifted across the Bay. They 
fell in with a few Frenchmen homeward-bound from 
the Banks, and let them pass uninjured. A large 
Spanish ship which they met next day, loaded with 
excellent fresh salt fish, was counted lawful prize. 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 141 

The fish was new and good, and was distributed 
through the fleet. Standing leisurely on, they cleared 
Finisterre and came up with the Isles of Bayona, at 
the mouth of Vigo Harbour. They dropped anchor 
there, and ' it was a great matter and a royal sight 
to see them.' The Spanish Governor, Don Pedro 
Bemadero, sent off with some astonishment to 
know who and what they were. Drake answered 
with a question whether England and Spain were 
at war, and if not why the English merchants had 
been arrested. Don Pedro could but say that he 
knew of no war, and for the merchants an order 
had come for their release. For reply Drake landed 
part of his force on the islands, and Don Pedro, not 
knowing what to make of such visitors, found it 
best to propitiate them with cartloads of wine and 
fruit. The weather, which had been hitherto fine, 
showed signs of change. The wind rose, and the 
sea with it. The anchorage was exposed, and 
Drake sent Christopher Carlile with one of his 
ships and a few pinnaces, up the harbour to look 
out for better shelter. Their appearance created a 
panic in the town. The alarmed inhabitants took 
to their boats, carrying off their property and their 
Church plate. Carlile, who had a Calvinistic objec- 
tion to idolatry, took the liberty of detaining part 
of these treasures. From one boat he took a 
massive silver cross belonging to the High Church 
at Vigo ; from another an image of Our Lady, 
which the sailors relieved of her clothes and were 



142 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

said, when she was stripped, to have treated with 
some indignity. Carhle's report being satisfactory, 
the whole fleet was brought the next day up the 
harbour and moored above the town. The news 
had by this time spread into the country. The 
Governor of Gahcia came down with all the force 
which he could collect in a hurry. Perhaps he was 
in time to save Vigo itself. Perhaps Drake, having 
other aims in view, did not care to be detained 
over a smaller object. The Governor, at any rate, 
saw that the English were too strong for him to 
meddle with. The best that he could look for was 
to persuade them to go away on the easiest terms. 
Drake and he met in boats for a parley. Drake 
wanted water and fresh provisions. Drake was to 
be allowed to furnish himself undisturbed. He had 
secured what he most wanted. He had shown the 
King of Spain that he was not invulnerable in his 
own home dominion, and he sailed away unmolested. 
Madrid was in consternation. That the English 
could dare insult the first prince in Europe on the 
sacred soil of the Peninsula itself seemed like a 
dream. The Council of State sat for three days 
considering the meaning of it. Drake's name was 
already familiar in Spanish ears. It was not con- 
ceivable that he had come only to inquire after the 
arrested ships and seamen. But what could the 
EngHsh Queen be about ? Did she not know that she 
existed only by the forbearance of Philip ? Did she 
know the King of Spain's force ? Did not she and 



.^. 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 143 

her people quake ? Little England, it was said by 
some of these councillors, was to be swallowed at a 
mouthful by the King of half the world. The old 
Admiral Santa Cruz was less confident about the 
swallowing. He observed that England had many 
teeth, and that instead of boasting of Spanish great- 
ness it would be better to provide against what she 
might do with them. Till now the corsairs had 
appeared only in twos and threes. With such a fleet 
behind him Drake might go where he pleased. He 
might be going to the South Seas again. He might 
take Madeira if he liked, or the Canary Islands. Santa 
Cruz himself thought he would make for the West 
Indies and Panama, and advised the sending out 
there instantly every available ship that they had. 
The gold fleet was Drake's real object. He had 
information that it would be on its way to Spain 
by the Cape de Verde Islands, and he had learnt 
the time when it was to be expected. From Vigo 
he sailed for the Canaries, looked in at Palma, with 
* intention to have taken our pleasure there,' but 
found the landing dangerous and the town itself not 
worth the risk. He ran on to the Cape de Verde 
Islands. He had measured his time too narrowly. 
The gold fleet had arrived and had gone. He had 
missed it by twelve hours, ' the reason,' as he said 
with a sigh, ' best known to God.' The chance of 
prize money was lost, but the poUtical purpose of 
the expedition could still be completed. The Cape 
de Verde Islands could not sail away, and a begin- 



144 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

ning could be made with Sant lago. Sant lago 
was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in 
Drake's book as specially needing notice, some 
Plymouth sailors having been recently murdered 
there. Christopher Carlile, always handy and 
trustworthy, was put on shore with a thousand 
men to attack the place on the undefended side. 
The Spanish commander, the bishop, and most of 
the people fled, as at Vigo, into the mountains 
with their plate and money. Carlile entered with- 
out opposition, and flew St. George's Cross from 
the castle as a signal to the fleet. Drake came in, 
landed the rest of his force, and took possession. 
It happened to be the 17th of November — the anni- 
versary of the Queen's accession — and ships and 
batteries, dressed out with English flags, celebrated 
the occasion with salvoes of cannon. Houses and 
magazines were then searched and plundered. 
Wine was found in large quantities, rich mer- 
chandise for the Indian trade, and other valuables. 
Of gold and silver nothing — it had all been re- 
moved. Drake waited for a fortnight, hoping that 
the Spaniards would treat for the ransom of the 
city. When they made no sign, he marched twelve 
miles inland to a village where the Governor and 
the Bishop were said to have taken refuge. But 
the village was found deserted. The Spaniards 
had gone to the mountains, where it was useless 
to follow them, and were too proud to bargain with 
a pirate chief. Sant lago was a beautifully built 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 145 

city, and Drake would perhaps have spared it ; but 
a ship-boy who had strayed was found murdered 
and barbarously mutilated. The order was given 
to bum. Houses, magazines, churches, public 
buildings were turned to ashes, and the work being 
finished Drake went on, as Santa Cruz expected, 
for the Spanish West Indies. The Spaniards were 
magnificent in all that they did and touched. They 
built their cities in their new possessions on the 
most splendid models of the Old World. St. 
Domingo and Carthagena had their castles and 
cathedrals, palaces, squares, and streets, grand and 
soKd as those at Cadiz and Seville, and raised as 
enduring monuments of the power and greatness 
)f the CastiUan monarchs. To these Drake meant 
o pay a visit. Beyond them was the Isthmus, 
v^here he had made his first fame and fortune, with 
Manama behind, the dep6t of the Indian treasure. 
5o far all had gone well with him. He had taken 
vhat he wanted out of Vigo ; he had destroyed 
5ant lago and had not lost a man. Unfortunately 
16 had now a worse enemy to deal with than 
Spanish galleons or Spanish garrisons. He was in 
ihe heat of the tropics. Yellow fever broke out 
^nd spread through the fleet. Of those who 
3aught the infection few recovered, or recovered 
only to be the wrecks of themselves. It was swift 
in its work. In a few days more than two hundred 
liad died. But the north-east trade blew merrily. 
The fleet sped on before it. In eighteen days they 



146 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

were in the roads at Dominica, the island of brooks 
and rivers and fruit. Limes and lemons and oranges 
were not as yet. But there were leaves and roots of 
the natural growth, known to the Caribs as antidotes 
to the fever, and the Caribs, when they learnt that 
the English were the Spaniards' enemies, brought 
them this precious remedy and taught them the 
use of it. The ships were washed and ventilated, 
and the water casks refilled. The infection seemed 
to have gone as suddenly as it appeared, and again 
all was well. 

Christmas was kept at St. Kitts, which was 
then uninhabited. A council of war was held to 
consider what should be done next. St. Domingo 
lay nearest to them. It was the finest of all the 
Spanish colonial cities. It was the capital of the 
West Indian Government, the great centre of 
West Indian commerce. In the cathedral, before 
the high altar, lay Columbus and his brother 
Diego. In natural wealth no island in the world 
outrivals Espinola, where the city stood. A vast 
population had collected there, far away from 
harm, protected as they supposed, by the majesty 
of the mother country, the native inhabitants 
almost exterminated, themselves undreaming that 
any enemy could approach them from the ocean, 
and therefore negligent of defence and enjoying 
themselves in easy security. 

Drake was to give them a new experience and 
a lesson for the future. On their way across from 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 147 

St. Kitts the adventurers overhauled a small vessel 
bound to the same port as they were. From the 
crew of this vessel they learnt that the harbour at 
St. Domingo was formed, hke so many others in 
the West Indies, by a long sandspit, acting as a 
natural breakwater. The entrance was a narrow 
inlet at the extremity of the spit, and batteries had 
been mounted there to cover it. To land on the 
outer side of the sandbank was made impossible by 
the surf. There was one sheltered point only 
where boats could go on shore, but this was ten 
miles distant from the town. 

Ten miles was but a morning's march. Drake 
went in himself in a pinnace, surveyed the landing- 
place, and satisfied himself of its safety. The plan 
of attack at Sant lago was to be exactly repeated. 
On New Year's Eve Christopher Carlile was again 
landed with half the force in the fleet. Drake 
remained with the rest, and prepared to force the 
entrance of the harbour if Carlile succeeded. Their 
coming had been seen from the city. The alarm 
had been given, and the women and children, the 
money in the treasury, the consecrated plate, 
movable property of all kinds, were sent off inland 
as a precaution. Of regular troops there seem to 
have been none, but in so populous a city there was 
no difficulty in collecting a respectable force to 
defend it. The hidalgos formed a body of cavalry. 
The people generally were unused to arms, but they 
were Spaniards and brave men, and did not mean 

L 2 



148 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

to leave their homes without a fight for it. Carlile 
lay still for the night. He marched at eight in the 
morning on New Year's Day, advanced leisurely, 
and at noon found himself in front of the wall. So 
far he had met no resistance, but a considerable 
body of horse — gentlemen and their servants chiefly 
— charged down on him out of the bush and out of 
the town. He formed into a square to receive 
them. They came on gallantly, but were received 
with pike and shot, and after a few attempts gave 
up and retired. Two gates were in front of Carlile, 
with a road to each leading through a jungle. 
At each gate were cannon, and the jungle was lined 
with musketeers. He divided his men and attacked 
both together. One party he led in person. The 
cannon opened on him, and an EngUshman next 
to him was killed. He dashed on, leaving the 
Spaniards no time to reload, carried the gate at a 
rush, and cut his way through the streets to the 
great square. The second division had been 
equally successful, and St. Domingo was theirs 
except the castle, which was still untaken. CarHle's 
numbers were too small to occupy a large city. He 
threw up barricades and fortified himself in the 
square for the night. Drake brought the fleet in at 
daybreak, and landed guns, when the castle sur- 
rendered. A messenger — a negro boy — was sent 
to the governor to learn the terms which he was 
prepared to offer to save the city from pillage. The 
Spanish officers were smarting with the disgrace. 



. • r 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 149 

One of them struck the lad through the body with 
a lance. He ran back bleeding to the Enghsh hues 
and died at Drake's feet. Sir Francis was a 
dangerous man to provoke. Such doings had to 
be promptly stopped. In the part of the town 
which he occupied was a monastery with a number 
of friars in it. The rehgious orders, he well knew, 
were the chief instigators of the pohcy which was 
maddening the world. He sent two of these friars 
with the provost-marshal to the spot where the boy 
had been struck, promptly hanged them, and then 
despatched another to tell the governor that he 
would hang two more every day at the same place 
till the officer was punished. The Spaniards had 
long learnt to call Drake the Draque, the serpent, 
the devil. They feared that the devil might be a 
man of his word. The offender was surrendered. 
It was not enough. Drake insisted that they 
should do justice on him themselves. The governor 
found it prudent to comply, and the too hasty officer 
was executed. 

The next point was the ransom of the city. 
The Spaniards still hesitating, 200 men were 
told off each morning to bum, while the rest 
searched the private houses, and palaces, and 
magazines. Government House was the grandest 
building in the New World. It was approached by 
broad flights of marble stairs. Great doors opened 
on a spacious gallery leading into a great hall, and 
above the portico hung the arms of Spain — a globe 



/ 



ISO ENGLISH SEAMEN 

representing the world, a horse leaping upon it, and 
in the horse's mouth a scroll with the haughty 
motto, ' Non sufficit orbis.' Palace and scutcheon 
were levelled into dust by axe and gunpowder, and 
each day for a month the destruction went on, 
Drake's demands steadily growing and the unhappy 
governor vainly pleading impossibility. 

Vandahsm, atrocity unheard of among civilised 
nations, dishonour to the Protestant cause, Drake 
deserving to swing at his own yardarm ; so indignant 
Liberahsm shrieked, and has not ceased shrieking. 
Let it be remembered that for fifteen years the 
Spaniards had been burning Enghsh seamen when- 
ever they could catch them, plotting to kill the 
Queen and reduce England itself into vassaldom to 
the Pope. The Enghsh nation, the loyal part of it, 
were replying to the wild pretension by the hands 
of their own admiral. If Philip chose to counte- 
nance assassins, if the Holy Office chose to bum 
Enghsh sailors as heretics, those heretics had a 
right to make Spain understand that such a game 
was dangerous, that, as Santa Cruz had said, they 
had teeth and could use them. 

It was found in the end that the governor's 
plea of impossibility was more real than was at first 
beheved. The gold and silver had been really 
carried off. All else that was valuable had been 
burnt or taken by the English. The destruction 
of a city so soUdly built was tedious and difficult. 
Nearly half of it was blown up. The cathedral was 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 151 

spared, perhaps as the resting-place of Columbus. 
Drake had other work before him. After staying 
a month in undisturbed occupation he agreed to 
accept 26,000 ducats as a ransom for what was 
left and sailed away. 

It was now February. The hot season was 
coming on, when the climate would be dangerous. 
There was still much to do and the time was nm- 
ning short. Panama had to be left for another 
opportunity. Drake's object was to deal blows 
which would shake the faith of Europe in the 
Spanish power. Carthagena stood next to St. 
Domingo among the Spanish West Indian for- 
tresses. The situation was strong. In 1740 Car- 
thagena was able to beat off Vernon and a great 
Enghsh fleet. But Drake's crews were in high 
health and spirits, and he determined to see what 
he could do with it. Surprise was no longer to be 
hoped for. The alarm had spread over the Carib- 
bean Sea. But in their present humour they were 
ready to go anywhere and dare anything, and to 
Carthagena they went. 

Drake's name carried terror before it. Every 
non-combatant — old men, women and children — 
had been cleared out before he arrived, but the rest 
prepared for a smart defence. The harbour at 
Carthagena was formed, as at St. Domingo and 
Port Eoyal, by a sandspit. The spit was long, 
narrow, in places not fifty yards wide, and covered 
with prickly bush, and along this, as before, it waa 



152 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

necessary to advance to reach the city. A trench 
had been cut across at the neck, and a stiff barri- 
cade built and armed with heavy guns; behind 
this were several hundred musketeers, while the 
bush was full of Indians with poisoned arrows. 
Pointed stakes — poisoned also — ^had been driven 
into the ground along the approaches, on which to 
step was death. Two large galleys, full of men, 
patrolled inside the bank on the harbour edge, and 
with these preparations the inhabitants hoped to 
keep the dreadful Drake from reaching them. 
Carlile, as before, was to do the land fighting. He 
was set on shore three miles down the spit. The 
tide is shght in those seas, but he waited till it was 
out, and advanced along the outer shore at low- 
water mark. He was thus covered by the bank 
from the harbour galleys, and their shots passed 
over him. Two squadrons of horse came out, but 
could do nothing to him on the broken ground. 
The EngUsh pushed on to the wall, scarcely losing 
a man. They charged, scaled the parapets, and 
drove the Spanish infantry back at point of pike. 
Carlile killed their commander with his own hand. 
The rest fled after a short struggle, and Drake was 
master of Carthagena. Here for six weeks he 
remained. The Spaniards withdrew out of the 
city, and there were again parleys over the ransom 
money. Courtesies were exchanged among the 
officers. Drake entertained the governor and 
his suite. The governor returned the hospitality 




•r 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 153 

and received Drake and the English captains. 
Drake demanded 100,000 ducats. The Span- 
iards oflEered 30,000, and protested that they 
could pay no more. The dispute might have 
lasted longer, but it was cut short by the re- 
appearance of the yellow fever in the fleet, this 
time in a deadlier form. The Spanish offer was 
accepted, and Carthagena was left to its owners. 
It was time to be off, for the heat was telling, and 
the men began to drop with appalling rapidity. 
Nombre de Dios and Panama were near and under 
their lee, and Drake threw longing eyes on what, if 
all else had been well, might have proved an easy 
capture. But on a review of their strength, it was 
found that there were but 700 fit for duty who 
could be spared for the service, and a council of 
war decided that a march across the Isthmus with 
so small a force was too dangerous to be ventured. 
Enough had been done for glory, enough for the 
political impression to be made in Europe. The 
King of Spain had been dared in his own dominions. 
Three fine Spanish cities had been captured by 
storm and held to ransom. In other aspects the 
success had fallen short of expectation. This time 
they had taken no Cacafuego with a year's produce 
of the mines in her hold. The plate and coin had 
been carried off, and the spoils had been in a form 
not easily turned to value. The expedition had 
been fitted out by private persons to pay its own 
cost. The result in money was but 60,000Z. Forty 



154 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

thousand had to be set aside for expenses. There 
remained but 20,000Z. to be shared among the 
ships' companies. Men and officers had entered, 
high and low, without wages, on the chance of 
what they might get. The officers and owners 
gave a significant demonstration of the splendid 
spirit in which they had gone about their work. 
They decided to rehnquish their own claims on the 
ransom paid for Carthagena, and bestow the same 
on the common seamen, ' wishing it were so much 
again as would be a sufficient reward for their 
painful endeavour.' 

Thus all were well satisfied, conscious all that 
they had done their duty to their Queen and 
country. The adventurers' fleet turned homewards 
at the beginning of April. What men could do 
they had achieved. They could not fight against 
the pestilence of the tropics. For many days the 
yellow fever did its deadly work among them, and 
only slowly abated. They were delayed by calms 
and unfavourable winds. Their water ran short. 
They had to land again at Cape Antonio, the 
western point of Cuba, and sink wells to supply 
themselves. Drake himself, it was observed, 
worked with spade and bucket, hke the meanest 
person in the whole company, always foremost 
where toil was to be endured or honour won, the 
wisest in the devising of enterprises, the calmest in 
danger, the first to set an example of energy in 
difficulties, and, above all, the firmest in maintain- 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 155 

ing order and discipline. The fever slackened as 
they reached the cooler latitudes. They worked 
their way up the Bahama Channel, going north to 
avoid the trades. The French Protestants had 
been attempting to colonise in Florida. The 
Spaniards had built a fortress on the coast, to ob- 
serve their settlements and, as occasion offered, cut 
Huguenot throats. As he passed by Drake paid 
this fortress a visit and wiped it out. Farther 
north again he was in time to save the remnant of 
an Enghsh settlement, rashly planted there by 
another brilliant servant of Queen Ehzabeth. 

Of all the famous Elizabethans Sir Walter 
Ealeigh is the most romantically interesting. His 
splendid and varied gifts, his chequered fortunes, 
and his cruel end, will embalm his memory in 
Enghsh history. But Ealeigh's great accomphsh- 
ments promised more than they performed. His 
hand was in everything, but of w^ork successfully 
completed he had less to show than others far his 
inferiors, to whom fortune had offered fewer oppor- 
tunities. He was engaged in a hundred schemes 
at once, and in every one of them there was always 
some taint of self, some personal ambition or private 
object to be gained. His hfe is a record of under- 
takings begun in enthusiasm, maintained imper- 
fectly, and failures in the end. Among his other 
adventures he had sent a colony to Virginia. He 
had imagined, or had been led by others to beheve, 
that there was an Indian Court there brilliant as 



156 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Montezuma's, an enlightened nation crying to be 
admitted within the charmed circle of Gloriana's 
subjects. His princes and princesses proved things 
of air, or mere Indian savages; and of Kaleigh 
there remains nothing in Virginia save the name 
of the city which is called after him. The starving 
survivors of his settlement on the Koanoke Eiver 
were taken on board by Drake's returning squadron 
and carried home to England, where they all 
arrived safely, to the glory of God, as our pious 
ancestors said and meant in unconventional 
sincerity, on the 28th of July, 1686. 

The expedition, as I have said, barely paid its 
cost. In the shape of wages the officers received 
nothing, and the crews but a few pounds a man ; 
but there was, perhaps, not one of them who was 
not better pleased with the honour which he had 
brought back than if he had come home loaded 
with doubloons. 

Startled Catholic Europe meanwhile rubbed its 
eyes and began to see that the ^enterprise of 
England,' as the intended invasion was called, 
might not be the easy thing which the seminary 
priests described it. The seminary priests had 
said that so far as England was Protestant at all it 
was Protestant only by the accident of its Govern- 
ment, that the immense majority of the people 
were Cathohc at heart and were thirsting for a 
return to the fold, that on the first appearance of 
a Spanish army of deliverance the whole edifice 



/. ^ 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 157 

which Elizabeth had raised would crumble to the 
ground. I suppose it is true that if the world had 
then been advanced to its present point of progress, 
if there had been then recognised a Divine right to 
rule in the numerical majority, even without a 
Spanish army the seminary priests would have 
had their way. Elizabeth's Parliaments were con- 
trolled by the municipalities of the towns, and the 
towns were Protestant. A Parliament chosen by 
universal suffrage and electoral districts would have 
sent Cecil and Walsingham into private life or to 
the scaffold, replaced the Mass in the churches, and 
reduced the Queen, if she had been left on the 
throne, into the humble servant of the Pope and 
Philip. It would not perhaps have lasted, but 
that, so far as I can judge, would have been the 
immediate result, and instead of a Keformation we 
should have had the light come in the shape of 
lightning. But I have often asked my Kadical 
friends what is to be done if out of every hundred 
enlightened voters two-thirds will give their votes 
one way, but are afraid to fight, and the remaining 
third will not only vote but will fight too if the poll 
goes against them. Which has then the right to 
rule ? I can tell them which will rule. The brave 
and resolute minority will rule. Plato says that if 
one man was stronger than all the rest of mankind 
he would rule all the rest of mankind. It must be 
so, because there is no appeal. The majority must 
be prepared to assert their Divine right with their 



158 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

right hands, or it will go the way that other Divine 
rights have gone before. I will not believe the 
world to have been so ill-constructed that there are 
rights which cannot be enforced. It appears to me 
that the true right to rule in any nation lies with 
those who are best and bravest, whether their 
numbers are large or small ; and three centuries 
ago the best and bravest part of this English nation 
had determined, though they were but a third of 
it, that Pope and Spaniard should be no masters of 
theirs. Imagination goes for much in such excited 
times. To the imagination of Europe in the 
sixteenth century the power of Spain appeared 
irresistible if she chose to exert it. Heretic Dutch- 
men might rebel in a remote province, English 
pirates might take liberties with Spanish traders, 
but the Prince of Parma was making the Dutchmen 
feel their master at last. The pirates were but so 
many wasps, with venom in their stings, but 
powerless to affect the general tendencies of things. 
Except to the shrewder eyes of such men as Santa 
Cruz the strength of the English at sea had been 
left out of count in the calculations of the resources 
of Elizabeth's Government. Suddenly a fleet of 
these same pirates, sent out, unassisted by their 
sovereign, by the private impulse of a few in- 
dividuals, had insulted the sacred soil of Spain 
herself, sailed into Vigo, pillaged the churches, 
taken anjrthing that they required, and had gone 
away unmolested. They had attacked, stormed, 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 159 

burnt, or held to ransom three of Spain's proudest 
colonial cities, and had come home unfought with. 
The Catholic conspirators had to recognise that 
they had a worse enemy to deal with than Puritan 
controversialists or spoilt Court favourites. The 
Protestant English mariners stood between them 
and their prey, and had to be encountered on an 
element which did not bow to popes or princes, 
before Mary Stuart was to wear Elizabeth's crown 
or Cardinal Allen be enthroned at Canterbury. It 
was a revelation to all parties. Elizabeth herself 
had not expected — perhaps had not wished — so 
signal a success. War was now looked on as in- 
evitable. The Spanish admirals represented that 
the national honour required revenge for an injury 
so open and so insolent. The Pope, who had been 
long goading the lethargic Philip into action, 
believed that now at last he would be compelled 
to move ; and even Philip himself, enduring as 
he was, had been roused to perceive that in- 
trigues and conspiracies would serve his turn no 
longer. He must put out his strength in earnest, 
or his own Spaniards might turn upon him as 
unworthy of the crown of Isabella. Very reluc- 
tantly he allowed the truth to be brought home to 
him. He had never liked the thought of invading 
England. If he conquered it, he would not be 
allowed to keep it. Mary Stuart would have to be 
made queen, and Mary Stuart was part French, 
and might be wholly French. The burden of the 



i6o ENGLISH SEAMEN 

work would be thrown entirely on his shoulders, 
and his own reward was to be the Church's blessing 
and the approval of his own conscience — nothing 
else, so far as he could see. The Pope would 
recover his annates, his Peter's pence, and his 
indulgence market. 

If the thing was to be done, the Pope, it was 
clear, ought to pay part of the cost, and this was 
what the Pope did not intend to do if he could help 
it. The Pope was flattering himself that Drake's 
performance would compel Spain to go to war 
with England whether he assisted or did not. In 
this matter Philip attempted to undeceive his 
Holiness. He instructed Olivarez, his ambassador 
at Kome, to tell the Pope that nothing had been 
yet done to him by the English which he could not 
overlook, and unless the Pope would come down 
with a handsome contribution peace he would make. 
The Pope stormed and raged ; he said he doubted 
whether Philip was a true son of the Church at all ; 
he flung plates and dishes at the servants' heads 
at dinner. He said that if he gave Philip money 
Philip would put it in his pocket and laugh at him. 
Not one maravedi would he give till a Spanish army 
was actually landed on English shores, and from 
this resolution he was not to be moved. 

To Philip it was painfully certain that if he 
invaded and conquered England the English 
Catholics would insist that he must make Mary 
Stuart queen. He did not like Mary Stuart. He , 



-'iinl HMJ 



THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES i6i 

disapproved of her character. He distrusted her 
promises. Spite of Jesuits and seminary priests, 
he believed that she was still a Frenchwoman at 
heart, and a bad woman besides. Yet something he 
must do for the outraged honour of Castile. He 
concluded, in his slow way, that he would collect a 
fleet, the largest and best-appointed that had ever 
floated on the sea. He would send or lead it in 
person to the English Channel. He would com- 
mand the situation with an overwhelming force, 
and then would choose some course which would 
be more convenient to himself than to his Holiness 
at Rome. On the whole he was inclined to let 
Elizabeth continue queen, and forget and forgive 
if she would put away her Walsinghams and her 
Drakes, and would promise to be good for the 
future. If she remained obstinate his great fleet 
would cover the passage of the Prince of Parma's 
army, and he would then dictate his own terms in 
London. 



m: 



i62 ENGLISH SEAMEN 



LECTUKE VII 

ATTACK ON CADIZ 

I RECOLLECT being told when a boy, on sending in 
a bad translation of Horace, that I ought to 
remember that Horace was a man of intelligence 
and did not write nonsense. The same caution 
should be borne in mind by students of history. 
They see certain things done by kings and states- 
men which they beheve they can interpret by as- 
suming such persons to have been knaves or idiots. 
Once an explanation given from the baser side of 
human nature, they assume that it is necessarily 
the right one, and they make their Horace into a 
fool without a misgiving that the folly may lie else- 
where. Kemarkable men and women have usually 
had some rational motive for their conduct, which 
may be discovered, if we look for it with our eyes 
open. 

Nobody has suffered more from bad translators 
than Elizabeth. The circumstances of Queen 
Elizabeth's birth, the traditions of her father, the 
interests of England, and the sentiments of the 
party who had sustained her claim to the succession, 
obliged her on coming to the throne to renew the 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 163 

separation from the Papacy. The Church of Eng- 
land was re-estabhshed on an Anglo-Cathohc basis, 
which the rival factions might interpret each in 
their own way. To allow more than one form of 
pubhc worship would have led in the heated temper 
of men's minds to quarrels and civil wars. But con- 
science might be left free under outward conformity, 
and those whom the Liturgy did not suit might 
use their own ritual in their private houses. 
EUzabeth and her wise advisers believed that if 
her subjects could be kept from fighting and kill- 
ing one another, and were not exasperated by out- 
ward displays of difference, they would learn that 
righteousness of life was more important than 
orthodoxy, and to estimate at their real value the 
rival dogmas of theology. Had time permitted 
the experiment to have a fair trial, it would per- 
haps have succeeded, but, unhappily for the Queen 
and for England, the fire of controversy was still 
too hot under the ashes. Protestants and Catholics 
had been taught to look on one another as enemies 
of God, and were still reluctant to take each other's 
hands at the bidding of an Act of Parliament. The 
more moderate of the Catholic laity saw no differ- 
ence so great between the English service and the 
Mass as to force them to desert the churches where 
their fathers had worshipped for centuries. They 
petitioned the Council of Trent for permission to 
use the English Prayer Book ; and had the Council 
consented, religious dissension would have dissolved 

M '2 



i64 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

at last into an innocent difference of opinion. 
But the Council and the Pope had determined that 
there should be no compromise with heresy, and 
the request was refused, though it was backed by 
Philip's ambassador in London. The action of the 
Papacy obliged the Queen to leave the Administra- 
tion in the hands of Protestants, on whose loyalty 
she could rely. As the struggle with the Reforma- 
tion spread and deepened she was compelled to 
assist indirectly the Protestant party in France 
and Scotland. But she still adhered to her own 
principle ; she refused to put herself at the head of 
a Protestant League. She took no step without 
keeping open a line of retreat on a contrary policy. 
She had Catholics in her Privy Council who were 
pensioners of Spain. She filled her household with 
Catholics, and many a time drove Burghley dis- 
tracted by listening to them at critical moments. 
Her constant effort was to disarm the antagonism 
of the adherents of the old beUef, by admitting 
them to her confidence, and showing them that 
one part of her subjects was as dear to her as 
another. 

For ten years she went on struggling. For ten 
years she was proudly able to say that during all 
that time no Catholic had suffered for his belief 
either in purse or person. The advanced section 
of the Catholic clergy was in despair. They saw 
the consciences of their flocks benumbed and their 
faith growing lukewarm. They stirred up the 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 165 

rebellion of the North. They persuaded Pius V. 
to force them to a sense of their duties by declaring 
Elizabeth excommunicated. They sent their mis- 
sionaries through the EngUsh counties to recover 
sheep that were straying, and teach the sin of sub- 
mission to a sovereign whom the Pope had deposed. 
Then had followed the Eidolfi plot, dehberately 
encouraged by the Pope and Spain, which had 
compelled the Government to tighten the reins. 
One conspiracy had followed another. Any means 
were held legitimate to rid the world of an enemy 
of God. The Queen's character was murdered by 
the foulest slanders, and a hundred daggers were 
sharpened to murder her person. The King of 
Spain had not advised the excommunication, 
l)ecause he knew that he would be expected to 
execute it, and he had other things to do. When 
called on to act, he and Alva said that if the 
English CathoUcs wanted Spanish help they must 
do something for themselves. To do the priests 
justice, they were brave enough. What they did, 
and how far they had succeeded in making the 
country disaffected. Father Parsons has told you 
in the paper which I read to you in a former 
lecture. Elizabeth refused to take care of herself. 
She would show no distrust. She would not dismiss 
the Catholic ladies and gentlemen from the house- 
hold. She would allow no penal laws to be enforced 
against Catholics as such. Kepeated conspiracies 
to assassinate her were detected and exposed, but 



i66 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

she would take no warning. She would have no 
bodyguard. The utmost that she would do was to 
allow the Jesuits and seminary priests, who, by 
Parsons's own acknowledgment were sowing rebel- 
lion, to be banished the realm, and if they persisted 
in remaining afterwards, to be treated as traitors. 
When executions are treated as martyrdoms, candi- 
dates wdll never be wanting for the crown of glory, 
and the flame only burnt the hotter. Tyburn and 
the quartering knife was a horrid business, and 
Elizabeth sickened over it. She hated the severity 
which she was compelled to exercise. Her name 
was defiled \\dth the grossest calumnies. She knew 
that she might be murdered any day. For herself 
she was proudly indifEerent ; but her death would 
and must be followed by a furious civil war. She 
told the Privy Council one day after some stormy 
scene, that she would come back afterwards and 
amuse herself with seeing the Queen of Scots 
making their heads fly. 

Philip was weary of it too. He had enough to 
do in ruling his own dominions without quarrelling 
for ever with his sister-in-law. He had seen that 
she had subjects, few or many, who, if he struck, 
would strike back again. Enghsh money and 
English volunteers were keeping ahve the war in 
the Netherlands. English privateers had plundered 
his gold ships, destroyed his commerce, and burnt 
his West Indian cities — all this in the interests of 
the Pope, who gave him fine words in plenty, but 



J 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 167 

who, when called on for money to help in the 
Enghsh conquest, only flung about his dinner 
plates. The Duke of Alva, while he was alive, and 
the Prince of Parma, who commanded in the 
Netherlands in Alva's place, advised peace if peace 
could be had on reasonable terms. If Ehzabeth 
would consent to withdraw her help from the 
Netherlands, and would allow the Enghsh Catholics 
the tacit toleration with which her reign had begun, 
they were of opinion, and Philip was of opinion too, 
that it would be better to forgive Drake and St. 
Domingo, abandon Mary Stuart and the seminary 
priests, and meddle no more with Enghsh internal 
politics. 

Tired with a condition which was neither war 
nor peace, tired with hanging traitors and the end- 
less problem of her sister of Scotland, Elizabeth 
saw no reason for refusing offers which would leave 
her in peace for the rest of her own life. Phihp, it 
was said, would restore the Mass in the churches in 
Holland. She might stipulate for such liberty of 
conscience to the Holland Protestants as she was 
herself willing to allow the English Catholics. She 
saw no reason why she should insist on a Uberty 
of public worship which she had herself forbidden 
at home. She did not s^e why the Hollanders 
should be so precise about hearing Mass. She said 
she would rather hear a thousand Masses herself 
than have on her conscience the crimes committed 
for the Mass or against it. She would not have her 



i68 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

realm in perpetual torment for Mr. Cecil's brothers 
in Christ. 

This was Ehzabeth's personal feeling. It could 
not be openly avowed. The States might then 
surrender to Philip in despair, and obtain better 
securities for their political Hberties than she was 
ready to ask for them. They might then join the 
Spaniards and become her mortal enemies. But 
she had a high opinion of her own statecraft. Her 
Catholic friends assured her that, once at peace with 
Philip, she would be safe from all the world. At 
this moment accident revealed suddenly another 
chasm which was opening unsuspected at her feet. 

Both Phihp and she were really wishing for 
peace. A treaty of peace between the Catholic 
King and an excommunicated princess would end 
the dream of a Catholic revolution in England. If 
the English peers and gentry saw the censures of 
the Church set aside so Hghtly by the most ortho- 
dox prince in Europe, Parsons and his friends 
would preach in vain to them the obUgation of 
rebeUion. If this deadly negotiation was to be 
broken off, a blow must be struck, and struck at 
once. There was not a moment to be lost. 

The enchanted prisoner at Tutbury was the 
sleeping and waking dream of CathoHc chivalry. 
The brave knight who would slay the dragon, de- 
liver Mary Stuart, and place her on the usurper's 
throne, would outdo Orlando or St. George, and be 
sung of for ever as the noblest hero who had ever 



M 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 169 

wielded brand or spear. Many a young British 
heart had thrilled with hope that for him the enter- 
prise was reserved. One of these was a certain 
Anthony Babington, a gentleman of some fortune 
in Derbyshire. A seminary priest named Ballard, 
excited, like the rest, by the need of action, and 
anxious to prevent the peace, fell in with this 
Babington, and thought he had found the man for 
his work. Elizabeth dead and Mary Stuart free, 
there would be no more talk of peace. A plot was 
easily formed. Half a dozen gentlemen, five of 
them belonging to or connected with EUzabeth's 
own household, were to shoot or stab her and 
escape in the confusion ; Babington was to make a 
dash on Mary Stuart's prison-house and carry her 
off to some safe place ; while Ballard undertook to 
raise the Catholic peers and have her proclaimed 
queen. Elizabeth once removed, it was supposed 
that they would not hesitate. Parma would bring 
over the Spanish army from Dunkirk. The Pro- 
testants would be paralysed. All would be begun 
and ended in a few weeks or even days. The 
Catholic religion would be re-established and the 
hated heresy would be trampled out for ever. Mary 
Stuart had been consulted and had enthusiasti- 
cally agreed. 

This interesting lady had been lately profuse in 
her protestations of a desire for reconciliation with 
her dearest sister. Elizabeth had almost believed 
her sincere. Sick of the endless trouble with Mary 



I70 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

Stuart and her pretensions and schemings, she 
had intended that the Scotch queen should be in- 
cluded in the treaty with Philip, with an imphed 
recognition of her right to succeed to the English 
throne after EUzabeth's death. It had been neces- 
sary, however, to ascertain in some way whether 
her protestations were sincere. A secret watch had 
been kept over her correspondence, and Babington's 
letters and her own answers had fallen into Wal- 
singham's hands. There it aU was in her own 
cipher, the key to which had been betrayed by the 
carelessness of a confederate. The six gentlemen 
who were to have rewarded Elizabeth's confidence 
by killing her were easily recognised. They were 
seized, with Babington and BaUard, when they 
imagined themselves on the eve of their triumph. 
Babington flinched and confessed, and they were 
all hanged. Mary Stuart herself had outworn com- 
passion. Twice already on the discovery of her 
earlier plots the House of Commons had petitioned 
for her execution. For this last piece of treachery 
she was tried at Fotheringay before a commission 
of Peers and Privy Councillors. She denied her 
letters, but her complicity was proved beyond a 
doubt. Parliament was called, and a third time 
insisted that the long drama should now be ended 
and loyal England be allowed to breathe in peace. 
Elizabeth signed the warrant. France, Spain, any 
other power in the world would have long since 
made an end of a competitor so desperate and so 



- i . 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 171 

incurable. Tom by many feelings — natural pity, 
dread of the world's opinion — Elizabeth paused 
before ordering the warrant to be executed. K 
nothing had been at stake but her own life, she 
would have left the lady to weave fresh plots and 
at last, perhaps, to succeed. If the nation's safety 
required an end to be made with her, she felt it 
hard that the duty should be thrown on herself. 
Where were all those eager champions who had 
signed the Association Bond, who had talked so 
loudly ? Could none of them be found to recollect 
their oaths and take the law into their own hands ? 

Her Council, Burghley, and the rest, knowing 
her disposition and feeUng that it was life or death 
to English liberty, took the responsibility on them- 
selves. They sent the warrant down to Fotheringay 
at their own risk, leaving their mistress to deny, if 
she pleased, that she had meant it to be executed ; 
and the wild career of Mary Stuart ended on the 
scaffold. 

They knew what they were immediately doing. 
They knew that if treason had a meaning Mary- 
Stuart had brought her fate upon herself. They 
did not, perhaps, reahse the full effects that were 
to follow, or that with Mary Stuart had vanished 
the last serious danger of a Catholic insurrection 
in England; or perhaps they did realise it, and 
this was what decided them to act. 

I cannot dwell on this here. As long as there 
was a Catholic princess of English blood to succeed 



172 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

to the throne, the allegiance of the Catholics to 
Elizabeth had been easily shaken. If she was 
spared now, every one of them would look on her 
as their future sovereign. To overthrow Elizabeth 
might mean the loss of national independence. 
The Queen of Scots gone, they were paralysed by 
divided counsels, and love of country proved 
stronger than their creed. 

What concerns us specially at present is the 
effect on the King of Spain. The reluctance of 
Philip to undertake the English enterprise (the 
' empresa,' as it was generally called) had arisen 
from a fear that when it was accomplished he 
would lose the fruit of his labours. He could 
never assure himself that if he placed Mary Stuart 
on the throne she would not become eventually 
French. He now learnt that she had bequeathed 
to himself her claims on the EngHsh succession. 
He had once been titular Ejng of England. He 
had pretensions of his own, as in the descent from 
Edward IH. The Jesuits, the Catholic enthusiasts 
throughout Europe, assured him that if he would 
now take up the cause in earnest, he might make 
England a province of Spain. There were still 
difficulties. He might hope that the English 
Catholic laity would accept him, but he could not 
be sure of it. He could not be sure that he would 
have the support of the Pope. He continued, as 
the Conde de Feria said scornfully of him, * meando 
en vado,' a phrase which I cannot translate; it 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 173 

meant hesitating when he ought to act. But he 
saw, or thought he saw, that he could now take a 
stronger attitude towards Elizabeth as a claimant 
to her throne. If the treaty of peace was to go 
forward, he could raise his terms. He could insist 
on the restoration of the Catholic religion in 
England. The States of the Low Countries had 
made over five of their strongest towns to Eliza- 
beth as the price of her assistance. He could in- 
sist on her restoring them, not to the States, but to 
himself. Could she be brought to consent to such 
an act of perfidy, Parma and he both felt that the 
power would then be gone from her, as efifectually 
as Samson's when his locks were clipped by the 
harlot, and they could leave her then, if it suited 
them, on a throne which would have become a 
pillory — for the finger of scorn to point at. 

With such a view before him it was more than 
ever necessary for PhiUp to hurry forward the 
preparations which he had already commenced. 
The more formidable he could make himself, the 
better able he would be to frighten Elizabeth into 
submission. 

Every dockyard in Spain was set to work, 
building galleons and collecting stores. Santa 
Cruz would command. Philip was himself more 
resolved than ever to accompany the expedition in 
person and dictate from the English Channel the 
conditions of the pacification of Europe. 

Secrecy was no longer attempted — indeed, was 



174 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

no longer possible. All Latin Christendom was 
palpitating with expectation. At Lisbon, at Cadiz, 
at Barcelona, at Naples, the shipwrights were busy 
night and day. The sea was covered with vessels 
freighted with arms and provisions streaming to 
the mouth of the Tagus. CathoKc volunteers from 
all nations flocked into the Peninsula, to take a 
share in the mighty movement which was to decide 
the fate of the world, and bishops, priests, and 
monks were set praying through the whole Latin 
Communion that Heaven would protect its own 
cause. 

Meantime the negotiations for peace continued, 
and Elizabeth, strange to say, persisted in listening. 
She would not see what was plain to all the world 
besides. The execution of the Queen of Scots lay 
on her spirit and threw her back into the obstinate 
humour which had made Walsingham so often 
despair of her safety. For two months after that 
scene at Fotheringay she had refused to see Burgh- 
ley, and would consult no one but Sir James Crofts 
and her Spanish-tempered ladies. She knew that 
Spain now intended that she should betray the 
towns in the Low Countries, yet she was blind to 
the infamy which it would bring upon her. She 
left her troops there without their wages to shiver 
into mutiny. She named commissioners, with Sir 
James Crofts at their head, to go to Ostend and 
treat with Parma, and if she had not resolved on 
an act of treachery she at least played with the 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 175 

temptation, and persuaded herself that if she chose 
to make over the towns to Philip, she would be 
only restoring them to their lawful owner. 

Burghley and Walsingham, you can see from 
their letters, believed now that Ehzabeth had 
ruined herself at last. Happily her moods were 
variable as the weather. She was forced to see 
the condition to which she had reduced her affairs 
in the Low Countries by the appearance of a number 
of starving wretches who had deserted from the 
garrisons there and had come across to clamour for 
their pay at her own palace gates. If she had no 
troops in the field but a mutinous and starving 
rabble, she might get no terms at all. It might 
be well to show Philip that on one element at least 
she could still be dangerous. She had lost nothing 
by the bold actions of Drake and the privateers. 
With half a heart she allowed Drake to fit them 
out again, take the Btionaventura, a ship of her 
own, to carry his flag, and go down to the coast of 
Spain and see what was going on. He was not 
to do too much. She sent a vice-admiral with 
him, in the Lioriy to be a check on over-audacity. 
Drake knew how to deal with embarrassing vice- 
admirals. His own adventurers would sail, if he 
ordered, to the Mountains of the Moon, and be 
quite certain that it was the right place to go to. 
Once under way and on the blue water he would 
go his own course and run his own risks. Cadiz 
Harbour was thronged with transports, provision 



176 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

ships, powder vessels — a hundred sail of them — 
many of a thousand tons and over, loading with 
stores for the Armada. There were thirty sail of 
adventurers, the smartest ships afloat on the ocean, 
and sailed by the smartest seamen that ever han- 
dled rope or tiller. Something might be done at 
Cadiz if he did not say too much about it. The 
leave had been given to him to go, but he knew by 
experience, and Burghley again warned him, that 
it might, and probably would, be revoked if he 
waited too long. The moment was his own, and he 
used it. He was but just in time. Before his sails 
were under the horizon a courier galloped into Ply- 
mouth with orders that under no condition was he 
to enter port or haven of the King of Spain, or in- 
jure Spanish subjects. What else was he going 
out for ? He had guessed how it would be. Comedy 
or earnest he could not tell. If earnest, some such 
order would be sent after him, and he had not an 
instant to lose. 

He sailed on the morning of the 12th of April. 
Off Ushant he fell in with a north-west gale, and 
he flew on, spreading every stitch of canvas which 
his spars would bear. In five days he was at Cape 
St. Vincent. On the 18th he had the white houses 
of Cadiz right in front of him, and could see for 
himself the forests of masts from the ships and 
transports with which the harbour was choked. 
Here was a chance for a piece of service if there 
was courage for the venture. He signalled for his 



X 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 177 

officers to come on board the Buonaventura. 
There before their eyes was, if not the Armada itself, 
the materials which were to fit the Armada for the 
seas. Did they dare to go in with him and destroy 
them ? There were batteries at the harbour mouth, 
but Drake's mariners had faced Spanish batteries 
at St. Domingo and Carthagena and had not 
found them very formidable. Go in ? Of course 
they would. Where Drake would lead the corsairs 
of Plymouth were never afraid to follow. The 
vice-admiral pleaded danger to her Majesty's ships. 
It was not the business of an English fleet to be 
particular about danger. Straight in they went 
with a fair wind and a flood tide, ran past the 
batteries and under a storm of shot, to which they 
did not trouble themselves to wait to reply. The 
poor vice-admiral followed reluctantly in the Lion. 
A single shot hit the Lioji^ and he edged away 
out of range, anchored, and drifted to sea again 
with the ebb. But Drake and all the rest dashed 
on, sank the guardship — a large galleon — and sent 
flying a fleet of galleys which ventured too near 
them and were never seen again. 

Further resistance there was none — absolutely 
none. The crews of the store ships escaped in 
their boats to land. The governor of Cadiz, the 
same Duke of Medina Sidonia who the next year 
was to gain a disastrous immortality, fled * like a tall 
gentleman ' to raise troops and prevent Drake from 
landing. Drake had no intention of landing. At 

N 



1/8 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

his extreme leisure he took possession of the 
Spanish shipping, searched every vessel, and carried 
oflE everything that he could use. He detained as 
prisoners the few men that he found on board, and 
then, after doing his work deliberately and com- 
pletely, he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables, and 
left them to drive on the rising tide under the 
walls of the town — a confused mass of blazing ruin- 
On the 12th of April he had sailed from Plymouth ; 
on the 19th he entered Cadiz harbour ; on the 1st of 
May he passed out again without the loss of a boat 
or a man. He said in jest that he had singed the 
King of Spain's beard for him. In sober prose he 
had done the King of Spain an amount of damage 
which a million ducats and a year's labour would 
imperfectly replace. The daring rapidity of the 
enterprise astonished Spain, and astonished Europe 
more than the storm of the West Indian towns. 
The English had long teeth, as Santa Cruz had 
told Philip's council, and the teeth would need 
drawdng before Mass would be heard again at 
Westminster. The Spaniards were a gaUant race, 
and a dashing exploit, though at their own expense, 
could be admired by the countrymen of Cervantes. 
' So praised,' we read, ' was Drake for his valour 
among them that they said if he was not a Lutheran 
there would not be the like of him in the world.' 
A Court lady was invited by the King to join a 
party on a lake near Madrid. The lady rephed 
that she dared not trust herself on the water with 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 179 

his Majesty lest Sir Francis Drake should have 
her. 

Drake might well be praised. But Drake 
would have been the first to divide the honour with 
the comrades who were his arm and hand. Great 
admirals and generals do not win their battles 
single-handed like the heroes of romance. Orders 
avail only when there are men to execute them. 
Not a captain, not an oflScer who served under 
Drake, ever flinched or blundered. Never was 
such a school for seamen as that twenty years' 
privateering war between the servants of the Pope 
and the West-country Protestant adventurers. 
Those too must be remembered who built and 
rigged the ships in which they sailed and fought 
their battles. We may depend upon it that there 
was no dishonesty in contractors, no scamping of 
the work in the yards where the Plymouth rovers 
were fitted out for sea. Their hearts were in it ; 
they were soldiers of a common cause. 

Three weeks had suflSced for Cadiz. No order 
for recall had yet arrived. Drake had other plans 
before him, and the men were in high spirits and 
ready for anything. A fleet of Spanish men-of-war 
was expected round from the Mediterranean. He 
proposed to stay for a week or two in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Straits, in the hope of falling in 
with them. He wanted fresh water, too, and had 
to find it somewhere. 

Before leaving Cadiz Eoads he had to decide 

N 2 



i8o en(;lish seamen 

what to do with his prisoners. Many English 
were known to be in the hands of the Holy Office 
working in irons as galley slaves. He sent in a 
pinnace to propose an exchange, and had to wait 
some days for an answer. At length, after a refer- 
ence to Lisbon, the Spanish authorities rephed 
that they had no English prisoners. If this was 
true those they had must have died of barbarous 
usage; and after a consultation with his officers 
Sir Francis sent in word that for the future such 
prisoners as they might take would be sold to the 
Moors, and the money applied to the redemption 
of English captives in other parts of the world. 

Water was the next point. There were springs 
at Faro, with a Spanish force stationed there to 
guard them. Force or no force, water was to be 
had. The boats were sent on shore. The boats' 
crews stormed the forts and filled the casks. The 
vice-admiral again lifted up his voice. The Queen 
had ordered that there was to be no landing on 
Spanish soil. At Cadiz the order had been ob- 
•served. There had been no need to land. Here 
ut Faro there had been direct defiance of her 
Majesty's command. He became so loud in his 
<5lamours that Drake found it necessary to lock 
him up in his own cabin, and at length to send him 
home with his ship to complain. For himself, as 
the expected fleet from the Straits did not appear, 
and as he had shaken ofiE his troublesome second 
in command, he proceeded leisurely up the coast, 



ATTACK ON CADIZ i8t 

intending to look in at Lisbon and see for himself 
how things were going on there. All along as he 
went he fell in with traders loaded with suppUes 
for the use of the Armada. All these he destroyed 
as he advanced, and at length found himself under 
the purple hills of Cintra and looking up into the 
Tagus. There lay gathered together the strength 
of the fighting naval force of Spain — ^fifty great 
galleons, already arrived, the largest warships 
^vhich then floated on the ocean. Santa Cruz, 
the best officer in the Spanish navy, was himself 
in the town and in command. To venture a 
repetition of the Cadiz exploit in the face of such 
odds seemed too desperate even for Drake, but it 
was one of those occasions when the genius of a 
great commander sees more than ordinary eyes. 
He calculated, and, as was proved afterwards, 
calculated rightly, that the galleons would be half 
manned, or not manned at all, and crowded with 
landsmen bringing on board the stores. Theit 
sides as they lay would be choked with hulks and 
lighters. They would be unable to get their 
anchors up, set their canvas, or stir from their 
moorings. Daring as Drake was known to be, no 
one would expect him to go with so small a force 
into the enemy's stronghold, and there would be 
no preparations to meet him. He could count 
upon the tides. The winds at that season of the 
year were fresh and steady, and could be counted 
on also to take him in or out ; there was sea room 



182 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

in the river for such vessels as the adventurers' to 
manoeuvre and to retreat if overmatched. Rash as 
fiuch an enterprise might seem to an unprofessional 
eye, Drake certainly thought of it, perhaps had 
meant to try it in some form or other and so make 
an end of the Spanish invasion of England. He 
could not venture without asking first for his 
mistress's permission. He knew her nature. He 
knew that his services at Cadiz would outweigh 
his disregard of her orders, and that so far he had 
nothing to fear ; but he knew also that she was still 
hankering after peace, and that without her leave 
he must do nothing to make peace impossible. 
There is a letter from him to the Queen, written 
when he was lying ofiE Lisbon, very characteristic 
of the time and the man. 

Nelson or Lord St. Vincent did not talk much of 
expecting supernatural assistance. If they had we 
should suspect them of using language conven- 
tionally which they would have done better to . 
leave alone. Sir Francis Drake, like his other 
great contemporaries, beheved that he was engaged 
in a holy cause, and was not afraid or ashamed to 
say so. His object was to protest against a recall 
in the flow of victory. The Spaniards, he said, 
were but mortal men. They were enemies of thei 
Truth, upholders of Dagon's image, which had 
fallen in other days before the Ark, and would fall 
again if boldly defied. So long as he had ships 
that would float, and there was food on board them 



.j^jj 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 183 

for the men to eat, he entreated her to let him stay 
and strike whenever a chance was offered him. 
The continuing to the end yielded the true glory. 
When men were serving religion and their country, 
a merciful God, it was hkely, would give them vic- 
tory, and Satan and his angels should not prevail. 

All in good time. Another year and Drake 
would have the chance he wanted. For the 
moment Satan had prevailed — Satan in the shape 
of Elizabeth's Catholic advisers. Her answer 
came. It was warm and generous. She did not, 
could not, blame him for what he had done so 
far, but she desired him to provoke the King of 
Spain no further. The negotiations for peace had 
opened, and must not be interfered with. 

This prohibition from the Queen prevented, 
perhaps, what would have been the most remark- 
able exploit in English naval history. As matters 
stood it would have been perfectly possible for 
Drake to have gone into the Tagus, and if he could 
not have burnt the galleons he could certainly 
have come away unhurt. He had guessed their 
condition with entire correctness. The ships were 
there, but the ships' companies were not on board 
them. Santa Cruz himself admitted that if Drake 
had gone in he could have himself done nothing 
' por falta de gente ' (for want of men). And Drake 
undoubtedly would have gone, and would have 
done something with which all the world would 
have rung, but for the positive command of his 



i84 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

mistress. He lingered in the roads at Cintra, 
hoping that Santa Cruz would come out and meet 
him. All Spain was clamouring at Santa Cruz's 
inaction. Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to 
energy. He must not allow himself to be defied 
by a squadron of insolent rovers. He must chase 
them off the coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz 
needed no stirring. Santa Cruz, the hero of a 
hundred fights, was chafing at his own impotence ; 
but he was obliged to tell his master that if he 
wished to have service out of his galleons he must 
provide crews to handle them, and they must rot 
at their anchors till he did. He told him, more- 
over, that it was time for him to exert himself 
in earnest. If he waited much longer, England 
would have grown too strong for him to deal with. 
In strict obedience Drake ought now to have 
gone home, but the campaign had brought so far 
more glory than prize money. His comrades 
required some consolation for their disappointment 
at Lisbon. The theory of these armaments of 
the adventurers was that the cost should be paid 
somehow by the enemy, and he could be assured 
that if he brought back a prize or two in which 
she could claim a share the Queen would not call 
him to a very strict account. Homeward-bound 
galleons or merchantmen were to be met with 
occasionally at the Azores. On leaving Lisbon 
Drake headed away to St. Michael's, and his lucky 
star was still in the ascendant. 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 185 

As if sent on purpose for him, the San Philip^ 
a magnificent caraque from the Indies, fell straight 
into his hands, ' so richly loaded,' it was said, ^ that 
every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.' 
There was no need to wait for more. It was but 
two months since Drake had sailed from Plymouth. 
He could now go home after a cruise of which the 
history of his own or any other country had never 
presented the like. He had struck the King of 
Spain in his owti stronghold. He had disabled 
the intended Armada for one season at least. He 
had picked up a prize by the way and as if by 
accident, worth half a million, to pay his expenses, 
so that he had cost nothing to his mistress, and 
had brought back a handsome present for her. I 
doubt if such a naval estimate was ever presented 
to an English House of Commons. Above all he 
had taught the self-confident Spaniard to be afraid 
of him, and he carried back his poor comrades in 
such a glow of triumph that they would have 
fought Satan and all his angels with Drake at 
their head. 

Our West-country annals still tell how the 
country people streamed down in their best clothes 
to see the great San Philip towed into Dart- 
mouth Harbour. English Protestantism was no 
bad cable for the nation to ride by in those stormy 
times, and deserves to be honourably remembered 
in a School of History at an English University. 



i86 ENGLISH SEAMEN 



LECTUEE VIII 

SAILING OF THE ARMADA 

Peace or war between Spain and England, that 
was now the question, with a prospect of securing 
the English succession for himself or one of his 
daughters. With the whole Spanish nation smart- 
ing under the indignity of the burning of the ships 
at Cadiz, Philip's warlike ardour had warmed into 
something like fire. He had resolved at any rate, 
if he was to forgive his sister-in-law at all, to insist 
on more than toleration for the Cathohcs in Eng- 
land. He did not contemplate as even possible 
that the English privateers, however bold or dex- 
terous, could resist such an armament as he was 
preparing to lead to the Channel. The Eoyal 
Navy, he knew very weU, did not exceed twenty- 
five ships of all sorts and sizes. The adventurers 
might be equal to sudden daring actions, but would 
and must be crushed by such a fleet as was being 
fitted out at Lisbon. He therefore, for himself, 
meant to demand that the Catholic religion should 
be restored to its complete and exclusive superiority, 
and certain towns in England were to be made 
over to be garrisoned by Spanish troops as securities 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 187 

for Elizabeth's good behaviour. As often happens 
with irresolute men, when they have once been 
forced to a decision they are as too hasty as before 
they were too slow. After Drake had retired from 
Lisbon the King of Spain sent orders to the Prince 
of Parma not to wait for the arrival of the Armada, 
but to cross the Channel immediately with the 
Flanders army, and bring Elizabeth to her knees. 
Parma had more sense than his master. He repre- 
sented that he could not cross without a fleet to 
cover his passage. His transport barges would 
only float in smooth water, and whether the water 
was smooth or rough they could be sent to the 
bottom by half a dozen English cruisers from the 
Thames. Supposing him to have landed, either in 
Thanet or other spot, he reminded Phihp that he 
could not have at most more than 25,000 men with 
him. The English mihtia were in training. The 
Jesuits said they were disaffected, but the Jesuits 
might be making a mistake. He might have to 
fight more than one battle. He would have to 
leave detachments as he advanced to London, to 
cover his communications, and a reverse would be 
fatal. He would obey if his Majesty persisted, but 
he recommended Philip to continue to amuse the 
English with the treaty till the Armada was ready, 
and, in evident consciousness that the enterprise 
would be harder than PhiUp imagined, he even 
gave it as his own opinion still (notwithstanding 
Cadiz), that if Elizabeth would surrender the 



i88 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

cautionary towns in Flanders to Spain, and would 
f^rant the English Catholics a fair degree of liberty, 
it would be Philip's interest to make peace at once 
without stipulating for further terms. He could 
make a new war if he wished at a future time, when 
circumstances might be more convenient and the 
Netherlands revolt subdued. 

To such conditions as these it seemed that 
Elizabeth was inclining to consent. The towns 
had been trusted to her keeping by the Nether- 
landers. To give them up to the enemy to make 
better conditions for herself would be an infamy so 
great as to have disgraced Elizabeth for ever ; yet 
she would not see it. She said the towns belonged 
to Philip and she would only be restoring his own 
to him. Burghley bade her, if she wanted peace, 
send back Drake to the Azores and frighten Philip 
for his gold ships. She was in one of her ungovern- 
able moods. Instead of sending out Drake again 
she ordered her own fleet to be dismantled and laid 
up at Chatham, and she condescended to apologise 
to Parma for the burning of the transports at Cadiz 
as done against her orders. 

This was in December 1587, only five months 
before the Armada sailed from Lisbon. Never had 
she brought herself and her country so near ruin. 
The entire safety of England rested at that mo- 
ment on the adventurers, and on the adventurers 
alone. 

Meanwhile, with enormous effort the destruction 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 189 

at Cadiz had been repaired. The great fleet was 
pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz reported 
himself almost ready. Santa Cruz and Philip, 
however, were not in agreement as to what should 
be done. Santa Cruz was a fighting admiral, 
Philip was not a fighting king. He changed his 
mind as often as Ehzabeth. Hot fits varied with 
cold. His last news from England led him to hope 
that fighting would not be wanted. The Commis- 
sioners were sitting at Ostend. On one side there 
were the formal negotiations, in which the surrender 
of the towns was not yet treated as an open ques- 
tion. Had the States been aware that Ehzabeth 
was even in thought entertaining it, they would 
have made terms instantly on their own account 
and left her alone in the cold. Besides this, there 
was a second negotiation underneath, carried on by 
private agents, in which the surrender was to be 
the special condition. These complicated schem- 
ings Parma purposely protracted, to keep Ehzabeth 
in false security. She had not dehberately intended 
to give up the towns. At the last moment she 
would have probably refused, unless the States 
themselves consented to it as part of a general 
settlement. But she was playing with the idea. 
The States, she thought, were too obstinate. Peace 
would be good for them, and she said she might do 
them good if she pleased, whether they liked it or 
not. 

Parma was content that she should amuse her- 



I90 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

self with words and neglect her defences by sea and 
land. By the end of February Santa Cruz was 
ready. A northerly wind blows strong down the 
coast of Portugal in the spring months, and he 
meant to be oflE before it set in, before the end of 
March at latest. Unfortunately for Spain, Santa 
Cruz fell ill at the last moment — ill, it was said, 
with anxiety. Santa Cruz knew well enough what 
Philip would not know — that the expedition would 
be no holiday parade. He had reason enough to 
be anxious if Philip was to accompany him and tie 
his hands and embarrass him. Any way, Santa 
Cruz died after a few days' illness. The sailing 
had to be suspended till a new commander could 
be decided on, and in the choice which Philip 
made he gave a curious proof of what he intended 
the expedition to do. He did not really expect or 
wish for any serious fighting. He wanted to be 
sovereign of England again, with the assent of the 
English Catholics. He did not mean, if he could 
help it, to irritate the national pride by force and 
conquest. While Santa Cruz lived, Spanish public 
opinion would not allow him to be passed over. 
Santa Cruz must command, and Philip had resolved 
to go with him, to prevent too violent proceedings. 
Santa Cruz dead, he could find someone who would 
do what he was told, and his own presence would 
no longer be necessary. 

The Duke of Medina Sidonia, named El Bueno, 
or the Good, was a grandee of highest rank. He 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 191 

was enormously rich, fond of hunting and shooting, 
a tolerable rider, for the rest a harmless creature 
getting on to forty, conscious of his defects, but 
not aware that so great a prince had any need to 
mend them ; without vanity, without ambition, and 
most happy when lounging in his orange gardens at 
San Lucan. Of active service he had seen none. 
He was Captain-General of Andalusia, and had run 
away from Cadiz when Drake came into the har- 
bour ; but that was all. To his astonishment and 
to his dismay he learnt that it was on him that the 
choice had fallen to be the Lord High Admiral of 
Spain and commander of the so much talked of 
expedition to England. He protested his unfitness. 
He said that he was no seaman; that he knew 
nothing of fighting by sea or land ; that if he ven- 
tured out in a boat he was always sick ; that he 
had never seen the English Channel ; and that, as 
to politics, he neither knew anything nor cared 
anything about them. In short, he had not one 
quaHfication which such a post required. 

Philip liked his modesty ; but in fact the Duke's 
defects were his recommendations. He would obey 
his instructions, would not fight unless it was 
necessary, and would go into no rash adventures. 
All that Philip wanted him to do was to find the 
Prince of Parma, and act as Parma should bid him. 
As to seamanship, he would have the best officers 
in the navy under him ; and for a second in com- 
mand he should have Don Diego de Valdez, a 



192 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

cautious, sileut, sullen old sailor, a man after 
Philip's own heart. 

Doubting, hesitating, the Duke repaired to 
Lisbon. There he was put in better heart by a 
nun, who said Our Lady had sent her to promise 
him success. Every part of the service was new 
to him. He was a fussy, anxious little man; set 
himself to inquke into everything, to meddle with 
things which he could not understand and had 
better have left alone. He ought to have left 
details to the responsible heads of departments. 
He fancied that in a week or two he could look 
himself into everything. There were 130 ships, 
8,000 seamen, 19,000 Spanish infantry, with gen- 
tlemen volunteers, officers, priests, surgeons, galley 
slaves — at least 3,000 more — provisioned for six 
months. Then there were the ships' stores, arms 
small and great, powder, spars, cordage, canvas, 
and such other million necessities as ships on ser- 
vice need. The whole of this the poor Duke took 
on himself to examine into, and, as he could not 
understand what he saw, and knew not what to 
look at, nothing was examined into at all. Every- 
one's mind was, in fact, so much absorbed by the 
spiritual side of the thing that they could not 
attend to vulgar commonplaces. Don Quixote, 
when he set out on his expedition, and forgot 
money and a change of linen, was not in a state 
of wilder exaltation than Catholic Europe at the 
sailing of the Annada. Every noble family in 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 193 

Spain had sent one or other of its sons to fight for 
Christ and Our Lady. 

For three years the stream of prayer had been 
ascending from church, cathedral, or oratory. The 
King had emptied his treasury. The hidalgo and 
the tradesman had offered their contributions. The 
crusade against the Crescent itself had not kindled 
a more intense or more sacred enthusiasm. All 
pains were taken to make the expedition spiritually 
worthy of its purpose. No impure thing, specially 
no impure woman, was to approach the yards or 
ships. Swearing, quarrelling, gambUng, were prohi- 
bited under terrible penalties. The galleons were 
named after the apostles and saints to whose charge 
they were committed, and every seaman and soldier 
confessed and communicated on going on board. 
The shipboys at sunrise were to sing their Buenos 
Dias at the foot of the mainmast, and their Ave 
Maria as the sun sank into the ocean. On the 
Imperial banner were embroidered the figures of 
Christ and His Mother, and as a motto the haughty 
' Plus Ultra ' of Charles V. was replaced with the 
more pious aspiration, * Exsurge, Deus, et vindica 
causam tuam.' 

Nothing could be better if the more vulgar 
necessities had been looked to equally well. Un- 
luckily, Medina Sidonia had taken the inspection of 
these on himself, and Medina Sidonia was unable 
to correct the information which any rascal chose 
to give him. 





194 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

At length, at the end of April, he reported him- 
self satisfied. The banner was blessed in the 
cathedral, men and stores all on board, and the 
Invincible Armada prepared to go upon its way. 
No wonder Philip was confident. A hmidred and 
thirty galleons, from 1,300 to 700 tons, 30,000 fight- 
ing men, besides slaves and servants, made up a 
force which the world might well think invincible. 
The guns were the weakest part. There were twice 
as many as the English; but they were for the 
most part nine and six pounders, and with but 
fifty rounds to each. The Spaniards had done 
their sea fighting hitherto at close range, grappling 
and trusting to musketry. They were to receive a 
lesson about this before the summer was over. 
But Philip himself meanwhile expected evidently 
that he would meet with no opposition. Of priests 
he had provided 180; of surgeons and surgeons' 
assistants eighty-five only for the whole fleet. 

In the middle of May he sent down his last 
orders. The Duke was not to seek a battle. If he 
fell in Avith Drake he was to take no notice of him, but 
thank God, as Dogberry said to the watchman, 
that he was rid of a knave. He was to go straight 
to the North Foreland, there anchor and communi- 
cate \\4th Parma. The experienced admirals who 
had learnt their trade under Santa Cruz — Martinez 
de Eecalde, Pedro de Valdez, Miguel de Oquendo 
— strongly urged the securing Plymouth or the 
Isle of Wight on their way up Channel. This had 



-.«»■.* J. 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 195 

evidently been Santa Cruz's own design, and the 
only rational one to have followed. Philip did not 
see it. He did not believe it would prove neces- 
sary ; but as to this and as to fighting he left them, 
as he knew he must do, a certain discretion. 

The Duke then, flying the sacred banner on 
the San Martin, dropped down the Tagus on the 
14th of May, followed by the whole fleet. The 
San Martin had been double-timbered with oak, 
to keep the shot out. He liked his business no 
better. In vain he repeated to himself that it was 
G-od's cause. God would see they came to no harm. 
He was no sooner in the open sea than he found 
no cause, however holy, saved men from the conse- 
quences of their own blunders. They were late out, 
and met the north trade wind, as Santa Cruz had 
foretold. 

They drifted to leeward day by day till they had 
dropped down to Cape St. Vincent. Infinite pains 
had been taken with the spiritual state of every one 
on board. The carelessness or roguery of contrac- 
tors and purveyors had not been thought of. The 
water had been taken in three months before. It 
was found foul and stinking. The salt beef, the 
salt pork, and fish were putrid, the bread full of 
maggots and cockroaches. Cask was opened after 
cask. It was the same story everywhere. They 
had to be all thrown overboard. In the whole fleet 
there was not a sound morsel of food but biscuit 
and dried fruit. The men went down in hundreds 

2 



196 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

with dysentery. The Duke bewailed his fate as 
innocently as Sancho Panza. He hoped God would 
help. He had wished no harm to anybody. He 
had left his home and his family to please the King, 
and he trusted the King would remember it. He 
wrote piteously for fresh stores, if the King would 
not have them all perish. The admirals said they 
could go no further without fresh water. All was 
dismay and confusion. The wind at last fell round 
south, and they made Finisterre. It then came on 
to blow, and they were scattered. The Duke with 
half the fleet crawled into Corunna, the crews 
scarce able to man the yards and trying to desert 
in shoals. 

The missing ships dropped in one by one, but a 
week passed and a third of them were still absent. 
Another despairing letter went oflE from the Duke 
to his master. He said that he concluded from 
their misfortunes that God disapproved of the 
expedition, and that it had better be abandoned. 
Diego Florez was of the same opinion. The stores 
were worthless, he said. The men were sick and 
out of heart. Nothing could be done that season. 

It was not by flinching at the first sight of 
difficulty that the Spaniards had become masters 
of half the world. The old comrades of Santa 
Cruz saw nothing in what had befallen them be- 
yond a common accident of sea Ufe. To abandon 
at the first check an enterprise undertaken with so 
much pretence, they said, would be cowardly and 



■L..LwJ.J 



S-iUZ^i^ Z^ 'THU xJjc^^iA 



were ont oS -sarrrr^ F^e^ zrifaci tjit ti?a»fl ciroild be 
taken on bcsir^ frrcL Canznau ISieT -eroi^ sett cap 
a shore hos^iiiaiZ irr 12k- si^ Tbe adbyss ma» 
not dangTETC'ii^ l^^ert iac iibhl ho deisiss. A 
little enasT ^uiifl aZ TFaiiifi tie "inell lueam. Pedio 
de Yaldez desx«a.c-i>rid * rainier it^ KsHro w entaneat 
him not to ii5:t»er ^C' lihe 3>::iT-"'5^ er^aiimirsu 



retnmed a speedr -suiiiFw^e? vJ frn f like Duie not to 
be frightened ^a ^bfido-rs. 

There was nn gr i ^Ti -r. in feet, resallv to be alarmed 

at. Fresh waiter t.oci awax liie dv5«giterr. Fiesh 

• « « 

food was bronsht in frc35n the eoimtrr. Galieian 
seamen filled the ^ap? made by the deserters. The 
ships were laid on shore and scraped and tallowed. 
Tents were pitched on an island in the harbour^ 
with altars and priests, and eveiyone confessed 
again and received the Sacrament. ' This/ wrote 
the Ihike, ' is great riches and a precious jewel, 
and all now are well content and cheerful.* The 
scattered flock had reassembled. Damages were 
all repaired, and the only harm had been loss of 
time. Once more, on the 23rd of July, the Armada 
in full numbers was under way for England and 
streaming across the Bay of Biscay with a fair 
wind for the mouth of the Channel. 

Leaving the Duke for the moment, we must 
now glance at the preparations made in England 
to receive him. It might almost be said that 
there were none at all. The winter months had 



198 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

been wild and changeable, but not so wild and not 
so fluctuating as the mind of England's mistress. 
In December her fleet had been paid ofiE at Chat- 
ham. The danger of leaving the country without 
any regular defence was pressed on her so vehe- 
mently that she consented to allow part of the 
ships to be recommissioned. The Revenge was 
given to Drake. He and Howard, the Lord 
Admiral, were to have gone with a mixed squadron 
from the Eoyal Navy and the adventurers down to 
the Spanish coast. In every loyal subject there 
had long been but one opinion, that a good open 
war w^as the only road to an honourable peace. 
The open war, they now trusted, was come at last. 
But the hope was raised only to be disappointed. 
With the news of Santa Cruz's death came a report 
which Elizabeth greedily believed, that the Armada 
.was dissolving and was not coming at all. Sir 
James Crofts sang the usual song that Drake and 
Howard wanted war, because war was their trade. 
She recalled her orders. She said that she was 
assured of peace in six weeks, and that beyond that 
time the services of the fleet would not be required. 
Half the men engaged were to be dismissed at 
once to save their pay. Drake and Lord Henry 
Seymour might cruise with four or five of the 
Queen's ships between Plymouth and the Solent. 
Lord Howard was to remain in the Thames with 
the rest. I know not whether swearing was 
interdicted in the English navy as well as in the 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 199 

Spanish, but I will answer for it that Howard did 
not spare his language when this missive reached 
him. ' Never/ he said, ' since England was England 
was such a stratagem made to deceive us as this 
treaty. We have not hands left to carry the ships 
back to Chatham. We are hke bears tied to a 
stake ; the Spaniards may come to worry us hke 
dogs, and we cannot hurt them.' 

It was well for England that she had other 
defenders than the wildly managed navy of the 
Queen. Historians tell us how the gentlemen of 
the coast came out in their own vessels to meet 
the invaders. Come they did, but who were they ? 
Ships that could fight the Spanish galleons were 
not made in a day or a week. They were built 
already. They were manned by loyal subjects, 
the business of whose lives had been to meet the 
enemies of their land and faith on the wide ocean — 
not by those who had been watching with divided 
hearts for a Cathohc revolution. 

March went by, and sure inteUigence came 
that the Armada was not dissolving. Again Drake 
prayed the Queen to let him take the Revenge 
and the Western adventurers down to Lisbon ; but 
the commissioners wrote full of hope from Ostend, 
and Elizabeth was afraid ' the King of Spain might 
take it ill.' She found fault with Drake's expenses. 
She charged him with wasting her ammunition 
in target practice. She had it doled out to him in 
driblets, and allowed no more than would serve for 



2<» ENGLISH SEAMEN 

a day and a half's service. She kept a sharp hand 
on the victualling houses. April went, and her 
four finest ships — the Trivmphy the Victory, the 
Elizabeth Jonas, and the Bear — ^were still with 
sails unbent, ' keeping Chatham church.' She said 
they would not be wanted and it would be waste of 
money to refit them. Again she was forced to 
yield at last, and the four ships were got to sea in 
time, the workmen in the yards making up for the 
delay; but she had few enough when her whole 
fleet was out upon the Channel, and but for the 
privateers there would have been an ill reckoning 
when the trial came. The Armada was coming 
now. There was no longer a doubt of it. Lord 
Henry Seymour was left with five Queen's ships 
and thirty London adventurers to watch Parma 
and the Narrow Seas. Howard, calrying his own 
flag in the Arh Baleigh, joined Drake at Plymouth 
with seventeen others. 

Still the numbing hand of his mistress pur- 
sued him. Food supplies had been issued to the 
middle of June, and no more was to be allowed. 
The weather was desperate — wildest smnmer ever 
known. The south-west gales brought the Atlantic 
rollers into the Sound. Drake lay inside, perhaps 
behind the island which bears his name. Howard 
rode out the gales under Mount Edgecumbe, the 
days going by and the provisions wasting. The 
rations were cut down to make the stores last 
longer. Owing to the many changes the crews had 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 201 

been hastily raised. They were ill-clothed, ill-pro- 
vided every way, but they complained of nothing, 
caught fish to mend their mess dinners, and prayed 
only for the speedy coming of the enemy. Even 
Howard's heart failed him now. English sailors 
would do what could be done by man, but they 
could not fight with famine. ^ Awake, Madam,' he 
wrote to the Queen, ^ awake, for the love of Christ, 
and see the villainous treasons round about you.* 
He goaded her into ordering supplies for one more 
month, but this was to be positively the last. The 
victuallers inquired if they should make further 
preparations. She answered peremptorily, ' No ' ; 
and again the weeks ran on. The contractors, it 
seemed, had caught her spirit, for the beer which 
had been furnished for the fleet turned sour, and 
those who dr^nk it sickened. The officers, on their 
own responsibility, ordered wine and arrowroot for 
the sick out of Plymouth, to be called to a sharp 
account when all was over. Again the rations 
were reduced. Four weeks' allowance was stretched 
to serve for six, and still the Spaniards did not 
come. So England's forlorn hope was treated at the 
crisis of her destiny. The preparations on land 
were scarcely better. The militia had been called 
out. A hundred thousand men had given their 
names, and the stations had been arranged where 
they were to assemble if the enemy attempted a 
landing. But there were no reserves, no magazines 
of arms, no stores or tents, no requisites for an army 



202 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

save the men themselves and what local resources 
could furnish. For a general the Queen had 
chosen the Earl of Leicester, who might have the 
merit of fidelity to herself, but otherwise was the 
worst fitted that she could have found in her whole 
dominions ; and the Prince of Parma was coming, 
if he came at all, at the head of the best-provided 
and best-disciplined troops in Europe. The hope 
of England at that moment was in her patient 
suffering sailors at Plymouth. Each morning they 
looked out passionately for the Spanish sails. 
Time was a w^orse enemy than the galleons. The 
six weeks would be soon gone, and the Queen's 
ships must then leave the seas if the crews were 
not to starve. Drake had certain news that the 
Armada had sailed. Where was it ? Once he 
dashed out as far as Ushant, but turned back, lest 
it should pass him in the night and find Plymouth 
undefended; and smaller grew the messes and 
leaner and paler the seamen's faces. Still not a 
man murmured or gave in. They had no leisure 
to be sick. 

The last week of July had now come. There 
were half-rations for one week more, and powder 
for two days' fighting. That was all. On so light 
a thread such mighty issues were now depending. 
On Friday, the 23rd, the Armada had started for 
the second time, the numbers undiminished ; reli- 
gious fervour burning again, and heart and hope 
high as ever. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday they 



i^at^JrJ. 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 203 

sailed on with a smooth sea and soft south winds, 
and on Monday night the Duke found himself at 
the Channel mouth with all his flock about him. 
Tuesday morning the wind shifted to the north, 
then backed to the west, and blew hard. The sea 
got up, broke into the stem galleries of the galleons, 
and sent the galleys looking for shelter in French 
harbours. The fleet hove to for a couple of days, 
till the weather mended. On Friday afternoon 
they sighted the Lizard and formed into fighting 
order ; the Duke in the centre, Alonzo de Leyva 
leading in a vessel of his own called the Bata 
Coronada, Don Martin de Eecalde covering the 
rear. The entire line stretched to about seven 
miles. 

The sacred banner was run up to the masthead 
of the San Martin. Each ship saluted with all 
her guns, and every man — officer, noble, seaman, 
or slave — knelt on the decks at a given signal to 
commend themselves to Mary and her Son. We 
shall miss the meaning of this high epic story if we 
do not realise that both sides had the most profound 
conviction that they were fighting the battle of the 
Almighty. Two principles, freedom and authority, 
were contending for the guidance of mankind. 
In the evening the Duke sent oflE two fast fly-boats 
to Parma to announce his arrival in the Channel, 
with another reporting progress to Philip, and say- 
ing that till he heard from the Prince he meant to 
stop at the Isle of Wight. It is commonly said 



204 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

that his officers advised him to go in and take 
Plymouth. There is no evidence for this. The 
island would have been a far more useful position 
for them. 

At dark that Friday night the beacons were 
seen blazing all up the coast and inland on the tops 
of the hills. They crept on slowly through Satur- 
day, with reduced canvas, feeling their way — ^not a 
sail to be seen. At midnight a pinnace brought in 
a fishing boat, from which they learnt that on the 
sight of the signal fires the English had come out 
that morning from Plymouth. Presently, when 
the moon rose, they saw sails passing between them 
and the land. With daybreak the whole scene 
became visible, and the curtain lifted on the first 
act of the drama. The Armada was between Eame 
Head and the Eddystone, or a little to the west of 
it. Plymouth Sound was right open to their left. 
The breeze, which had dropped in the night, was 
freshening from the south-west, and right ahead of 
them, outside the Mew Stone, were eleven ships 
manoeuvring to recover the wind. Towards the 
land were some forty others, of various sizes, and 
this formed, as far as they could see, the whole 
EngUsh force. In numbers the Spaniards were 
nearly three to one. In the size of the ships there 
was no comparison. With these advantages the 
Duke decided to engage, and a signal was made to 
hold the wind and keep the enemy apart. The 
eleven ships ahead were Howard's squadron ; those 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 205 

inside were Drake and the adventurers. With some 
surprise the Spanish ofl&oers saw Howard reach 
easily to windward out of range and join Drake. 
The whole EngUsh fleet then passed out close- 
hauled in line behind them and swept along their 
rear, using guns more powerful than theirs and 
pouring in broadsides from safe distance with 
deadly eflfect. Recalde, with Alonzo de Leyva and 
Oquendo, who came to his help, tried desperately 
to close ; but they could make nothing of it. They 
were out-sailed and out-cannoned. The English 
fired five shots to one of theirs, and the effect was 
the more destructive because, as with Rodney's 
action at Dominica, the gaUeons were crowded with 
troops, and shot and splinters told terribly among 
them. 

The experience was new and not agreeable. 
Recalde's division was badly cut up, and a Spaniard 
present observes that certain ofl&cers showed cow- 
ardice — a hit at the Duke, who had kept out of 
fire. The action lasted till four in the afternoon. 
The wind was then freshening fast and the sea 
rising. Both fleets had by this time passed the 
Sound, and the Duke, seeing that nothing could 
be done, signalled to bear away up Channel, the 
English following two miles astern. Recalde's 
own ship had been an especial sufferer. She was 
observed to be leaking badly, to drop behind, and 
to be in danger of capture. Pedro de Valdez wore 
round to help him in the Gapitana^ of the Anda- 



2o6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

lusian squadron, fouled the Santa Gatalina in 
turning, broke his bowsprit and foretopmast, and 
became unmanageable. The Andalusian Gapi- 
tana was one of the finest ships in the Spanish 
fleet, and Don Pedro one of the ablest and most 
popular commanders. She had 500 men on 
board, a large sum of money, and, among other 
treasures, a box of jewel-hilted swords, which * 
Philip was sending over to the English Catholic 
peers. But it was growing dark. Sea and sky 
looked ugly. The Duke was flurried, and signalled 
to go on and leave Don Pedro to his fate. Alonzo 
de Leyva and Oquendo rushed on board the San 
Martin to protest. It was no use. Diego Florez 
said he could not risk the safety of the fleet for a 
single officer. The deserted Capitana made a 
brave defence, but could not save herself, and fell, 
with the jewelled swords, 50,000 ducats, and a wel- 
come supply of powder, into Drake's hands. 

Off the Start there was a fresh disaster. Every 
one was in ill-humour. A quarrel broke out between 
the soldiers and seamen in Oquendo's galleon. He 
was himself still absent. Some wretch or other 
flung a torch into the powder magazine and jumped 
overboard. The deck was blown off, and 200 
men along with it. 

Two such accidents following an unsuccessful 
engagement did not tend to reconcile the Spaniards 
to the Duke's command. Pedro de Valdez was 
universally loved and honoured, and hi& desertion 



. . .» ^'i\ 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 207 

in the face of an enemy so inferior in numbers 
was regarded as scandalous poltroonery. Monday 
morning broke hea^dly. The wind was gone, but 
there was still a considerable swell. The English 
were hull down behind. The day was spent in 
repairing damages and nailing lead over the shot- 
holes. Eecalde was moved to the front, to be out 
of harm's way, and De Leyva took his post in the 
rear. 

At sunset they were outside Portland. The 
English had come up within a league ; but it was 
now dead calm, and they drifted apart in the tide. 
The Duke thought of nothing, but at midnight the 
Spanish officers stirred him out of his sleep to urge 
him to set his great galleasses to work ; now was 
their chance. The dawn brought a chance still 
better, for it brought an east wind, and the Spani- 
ards had now the weather-gage. Could they once 
close and grapple with the English ships, their supe- 
rior numbers would then assure them a victory, and 
Howard, being to leeward and inshore, would have 
to pass through the middle of the Spanish line to 
recover his advantage. However, it was the same 
story. The Spaniards could not use an opportunity 
when they had one. New-modelled for superiority 
of sailing, the English ships had the same advan- 
tage over the galleons as the steam cruisers would 
have over the old three-deckers. While the breeze 
held they went where they pleased. The Spaniards 
were out-sailed, out-matched, crushed by guns of 



2o8 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

longer range than theirs. Their own shot flew 
high over the low English hulls, while every ball 
found its way through their own towering sides. 
This time the San Martin was in the thick of it. 
Her double timbers were ripped and torn ; the holy 
standard was cut in two ; the water poured through 
the shot-holes. The men lost their nerve. In such 
ships as had no gentlemen on board notable signs 
were observed of flinching. 

At the end of that day's fighting the English 
powder gave out. Two days' service had been the 
limit of the Queen's allowance. Howard had 
pressed for a more liberal supply at the last 
moment, and had received the characteristic 
answer that he must state precisely how much he 
wanted before more could be sent. The lighting of 
the beacons had quickened the ofl&cial pulse a little. 
A small addition had been despatched to Weymouth 
or Poole, and no more could be done till it arrived. 
The Duke, meanwhile, was left to smooth his 
ruffled plumes and drift on upon his way. But by 
this time England was awake. Fresh privateers, 
with powder, meat, bread, fruit, anything that they 
could bring, were pouring out from the Dorsetshire 
harbours. Sir George Carey had come from the 
Needles in time to share the honours of the last 
battle, ' round shot,' as he said, ' flying thick as 
musket balls in a skirmish on land.' 

The Duke had observed uneasily from the San 
Martin's deck that his pursuers were growing 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 209 

numerous. He had made up his mind definitely 
to go for the Isle of Wight, shelter his fleet in the 
Solent, land 10,000 men in the island, and stand 
on his defence till he heard from Parma. He must 
fight another battle ; but, cut up as he had been, 
he had as yet lost but two ships, and those by ac- 
cident. He might fairly hope to force his way in 
with help from above, for which he had special 
reason to look in the next engagement. Wednes- 
day was a breathless calm. The EngUsh were 
taking in their supplies. The Armada lay still, 
repairing damages. Thursday would be St. 
Dominic's Day. St. Dominic belonged to the 
Duke's own family, and was his patron saint. St. 
Dominic, he felt sure, would now stand by his 
kinsman. 

The morning broke with a light air. The 
English would be less able to move, and with the 
help of the galleasses he might hope to come to 
close quarters at last. Howard seemed inclined to 
give him his wish. With just wind enough to move 
the Lord Admiral led in the ArJc Baleigh straight 
down on the Spanish centre. The Ark outsailed 
her consorts and found herself alone with the gal- 
leons all round her. At that moment the wind 
dropped. The Spanish boarding-parties were at 
their posts. The tops were manned with mus- 
keteers, the grappling irons all prepared to fling 
into the ArJc's rigging. In imagination the 
English admiral was their own. But each day's 



2IO ENGLISH SEAMEN 

experience was to teach them a new lesson. Eleven 
boats dropped from the Arl's sides and took her 
in tow. The breeze rose again as she began to 
move. Her sails filled, and she slipped away 
through the water, leaving the Spaniards las if they 
were at anchor, staring in helpless amazement. 
The wind brought up Drake and the rest, and then 
began again the terrible cannonade from which the 
Armada had already suffered so frightfully. It 
seemed that morning as if the English were using 
guns of even heavier metal than on either of the 
preceding days. The armament had not been 
changed. The gro\\iih was in their own frightened 
imagination. The Duke had other causes for un- 
easiness. His own magazines were also giving out 
under the unexpected demands upon them. One 
battle was the utmost which he had looked for. He 
had fought three, and the end was no nearer than 
before. With resolution he might still have made 
his way into St. Helen's roads, for the English were 
evidently afraid to close with him. But when St. 
Dominic, too, failed him he lost his head. He 
lost his heart, and losing heart he lost all. In 
the Solent he would have been comparatively 
safe, and he could easily have taken the Isle of 
Wight ; but his one thought now was to find safety 
under Panna's gaberdine and make for Calais or 
Dunkirk. He supposed Parma to have already 
embarked, on hearing of his coming, with a second 
armed fleet, and in condition for immediate action. 



SAILING OF THE ARMADA 211 

He sent on another pinnace, pressing for help, 
pressing for ammunition, and fly-boats to protect 
the galleons ; and Parma was himself looking to be 
supplied from the Armada, with no second fleet at 
all, only a flotilla of river barges which would need 
a week's work to be prepared for the crossing. 

Philip had provided a splendid fleet, a splendid 
army, and the finest sailors in the world except the 
English. He had failed to realise that the grandest 
preparations are useless with a fool to command. 
The poor Duke was less to blame than his master. 
An office had been thrust upon him for which he 
knew that he had not a single qualification. His 
one anxiety was to find Parma, lay the weight on 
Parma's shoulders, and so have done with it. 

On Friday he was left alone to make his way up 
Channel towards the French shore. The English 
still followed, but he counted that in Calais roads 
he would be in French waters, where they would 
not dare to meddle with him. They would then, 
he thought, go home and annoy him no further. 
As he dropped anchor in the dusk outside Calais on 
Saturday evening he saw, to his disgust, that the 
endemoniada gente — the infernal devils — as he 
called them, had brought up at the same moment 
with himself, half a league astern of him. His one 
trust was in the Prince of Parma, and Parma at any 
rate was now within touch. 



p 2 



212 ENGLISH SEAMEN 



LECTUEE IX 

DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 

In the gallery at Madrid there is a picture, painted 
by Titian, representing the Genius of Spain coming 
to the delivery of the afflicted Bride of Christ. 
Titian was dead, but the temper of the age survived, 
and in the study of that great picture you will see 
the spirit in which the Spanish nation had set out 
for the conquest of England. The scene is the sea- 
shore. The Church a naked Andromeda, with 
dishevelled hair, fastened to the trunk of an ancient 
disbranched tree. The cross hes at her feet, the 
cup overturned, the serpents of heresy biting at her 
from behind with uphfted crests. Coming on before 
a leading breeze is the sea monster, the Moslem 
fleet, eager for their prey ; while in front is Perseus, 
the Genius of Spain, banner in hand, with the 
legions of the faithful laying not raiment before 
him, but shield and helmet, the apparel of war for 
the Lady of Nations to clothe herself with strength 
and smite her foes. 

In the Armada the crusading enthusiasm had 
reached its point and focus. England was the 
;stake to which the Virgin, the daughter of Sion, 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 213 

was bound in captivity. Perseus had come at last 
in the person of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and 
w4th him all that was best and brightest in the 
countrymen of Cervantes, to break her bonds and 
replace her on her throne. They had sailed into 
the Channel in pious hope, with the blessed banner 
waving over their heads. 

To be the executor of the decrees of Providence 
is a lofty ambition, but men in a state of high 
emotion overlook the precautions which are not to 
be dispensed with even on the sublimest of errands. 
Don Quixote, when he set out to redress the wrongs 
of humanity, forgot that a change of linen might be 
necessary, and that he must take money with him 
to pay his hotel bills. Philip II., in sending the 
Armada to England, and confident in supernatural 
protection, imagined an unresisted triumphal pro- 
cession. He forgot that contractors might be 
rascals, that water four months in the casks in 
a hot climate turned putrid, and that putrid 
water would poison his ships' companies, though 
his crews were companies of angels. He forgot 
that the servants of the evil one might fight for 
their mistress after all, and that he must send 
adequate supplies of powder, and, worst forgetful- 
ness of all, that a great naval expedition required a 
leader who understood his business. Perseus, in 
the shape of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, after a 
week of disastrous battles, found himself at the end 
of it in an exposed roadstead, where he ought never 



214 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

to have been, nine-tenths of his provisions thrown 
overboard as unfit for food, his ammunition ex- 
hausted by the unforeseen demands upon it, the 
seamen and soldiers harassed and dispirited, officers 
the whole week without sleep, and the enemy, who 
had hunted him from Plymouth to Calais, anchored 
within half a league of him. 

Still, after all his misadventures, he had brought 
the fleet, if not to the North Foreland, yet within 
a few miles of it, and to outward appearance not 
materially injured. Two of the galleons had been 
taken ; a third, the Santa Aiia^ had strayed ; and 
his galleys had left him, being foimd too weak for 
the Channel sea; but the great armament had 
reached its destination substantially uninjiured so 
far as Enghsh eyes could see. Hundreds of men 
had been killed and hundreds more wounded, and 
the spirit of the rest had been shaken. But the 
loss of life could only be conjectured on board the 
Enghsh fleet. The Enghsh admiral could only see 
that the Duke was now in touch with Parma. 
Parma, they knew, had an army at Dunkirk with 
him, which was to cross to England. He had been 
collecting men, barges, and transports all the winter 
and spring, and the backward state of Parma's 
preparations could not be anticipated, still less 
relied upon. The Calais anchorage was unsafe ; 
but at that season of the year, especially after a wet 
summer, the weather usually settled ; and to attack 
the Spaniards in a French port might be dangerous 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 215 

for many reasons. It was uncertain after the day 
of the Barricades whether the Duke of Guise or 
Henry of Valois was master of France, and a 
violation of the neutrahty laws might easily at that 
moment bring Guise and France into the field on 
the Spaniards' side. It was, no doubt, with some 
such expectation that the Duke and his advisers 
had chosen Calais as the point at which to bring 
up. It was now Saturday, the 7th of August. The 
governor of the town came oflE in the evening to 
the 8an Martin. He expressed surprise to see the 
Spanish fleet in so exposed a position, but he was 
profuse in his offers of service. Anything which the 
Duke required should be provided, especially every 
facility for communicating with Dunkirk and Parma. 
The Duke thanked him, said that he supposed 
Parma to be already embarked with his troops, ready 
for the passage, and that his own stay in the roads 
would be but brief. On Monday morning at latest he 
expected that the attempt to cross would be made. 
The governor took his leave, and the Duke, relieved 
from his anxieties, was left to a peaceful night. He 
was disturbed on the Sunday morning by an express 
from Parma informing him that, so far from being 
embarked, the army could not be ready for a fort- 
night. The barges were not in condition for sea. 
The troops were in camp. The arms and stores 
were on the quays at Dunkirk. As for the fly-boats 
and ammunition which the Duke had asked for, he 
had none to spare. He had himself looked to be 



2i6 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

supplied from the Annada. He promised to use his. 
best expedition, but the Duke, meanwhile, must see 
to the safety of the fleet. 

Unwelcome news to a harassed landsman thrust 
into the position of an admiral and eager to be rid 
of his responsibilities. If by evil fortune the north- 
wester should come down upon him, with the shoals 
and sandbanks close under his lee, he would be in a 
bad way. Nor was the view behind him calculated 
for comfort. There lay the enemy almost within 
gunshot, who, though scarcely more than half his 
numbers, had hunted him like a pack of blood- 
hounds, and, worse than all, in double strength ; for 
the Thames squadron — three Queen's ships and 
thirty London adventurers — under Lord H. Sey- 
mour and Sir John Hawkins, had crossed in the 
night. There they were between him and Cape 
Grisnez, and the reinforcement meant plainly 
enough that mischief was in the wind. 

After a week so trying the Spanish crews would 
have been glad of a Sunday's rest if they could 
have had it ; but the rough handling which they 
had gone through had thrown everything into 
disorder. The sick and wounded had to be cared 
for, torn rigging looked to, splintered timbers 
mended, decks scoured, and guns and arms cleaned 
up and put to rights. And so it was that no rest 
could be allowed ; so much had to be done, and so 
busy was everyone, that the usual rations were not 
served out and the Sunday was kept as a fast. In 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 217 

the afternoon the stewards went ashore for fresh 
meat and vegetables. They came back with their 
boats , loaded, and the prospect seemed a little less 
gloomy. Suddenly, as the Duke and a group of 
officers were watching the English fleet from the 
San Martin's poop deck, a small smart pinnace, 
carrying a gun in her bow, shot out from Howard's 
lines, bore down on the San Martin^ sailed round 
her, sending in a shot or two as she passed, and 
went off unhurt. The Spanish officers could not 
help admiring such airy impertinence. Hugo de 
Mon9ada sent a ball after the pinnace, which went 
through her mainsail, but did no damage, and the 
pinnace again disappeared behind the English 
ships. 

So a Spanish officer describes the scene. The 
English story says nothing of the pinnace ; but she 
doubtless came and went as the Spaniard says, and 
for sufficient purpose. The English, too, were in 
straits, though the Duke did not dream of it. You 
will remember that the last supplies which the 
Queen had allowed to the fleet had been issued in 
the middle of June. They were to serve for a 
month, and the contractors were forbidden to pre- 
pare more. The Queen had clung to her hope that 
her differences with Philip were to be settled by the 
Commission at Ostend; and she feared that if 
Drake and Howard were too well furnished they 
would venture some fresh rash stroke on the coast 
of Spain, which might mar the negotiations. Their 



2i8 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

month's provisions had been stretched to serve for 
six weeks, and when the Armada appeared but two 
full days' rations remained. On these they had 
fought their way up Channel. Something had been 
brought out by private exertion on the Dorsetshire 
coast, and Seymour had, perhaps, brought a little 
more. But they were still in extremity. The 
contractors had warned the Government that they 
could provide nothing without notice, and notice 
had not been given. The adventurers were in 
better state, having been equipped by private 
owners. But the Queen's ships in a day or two 
more must either go home or their crews would 
be starving. They had been on reduced rations for 
near two months. Worse than that, they were 
still poisoned by the sour beer. The Queen had 
changed her mind so often, now ordering the fleet 
to prepare for sea, then recalling her instructions 
and paying off the men, that those whom Howard 
had with him had been enlisted in haste, had come 
on board as they were, and their clothes were hang- 
ing in rags on them. The fighting and the sight 
of the flying Spaniards were meat and drink, and 
clothing too, and had made them careless of all else- 
There was no fear of mutiny ; but there was a limit 
to the toughest endurance. If the Armada was 
left undisturbed a long struggle might be still before 
them. The enemy w^ould recover from its flurry, 
and Parma would come out from Dunkirk. To 
attack them directly in French waters might lead 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 219 

to perilous complications, while delay meant famine. 
The Spanish fleet had to be started from the roads 
in some way. Done it must be, and done imme- 
diately. 

Then, on that same Sunday afternoon a memor- 
able council of war was held in the Arh's main 
cabin. Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin 
Frobisher, and two or three others met to consult, 
knowing that on them at that moment the liberties 
of England were depending. Their resolution was 
taken promptly. There was no time for talk. 
After nightfall a strong flood tide would be setting 
up along shore to the Spanish anchorage. They 
would try what could be done with fire ships, and 
the excursion of the pinnace, which was taken for 
bravado, was probably for a survey of the Armada's 
exact position. Meantime eight useless vessels 
were coated with pitch — hulls, spars, and rigging. 
Pitch was poured on the decks and over the sides, 
and parties were told ofi to steer them to their 
destination and then fire and leave them. 

The hours stole on, and twilight passed into 
dark. The night was without a moon. The Duke 
paced his deck late with uneasy sense of danger. 
He observed lights moving up and down the 
English lines, and imagining that the endemoniada 
gente — the infernal devils — might be up to mischief, 
ordered a sharp look-out. A faint westerly air was 
curling the water, and towards midnight the 
watchers on board the galleons made out dimly 



220 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

several ships which seemed to be drifting down 
upon them. Their experience since the action off 
Plymouth had been so strange and unlooked for 
that anything unintelligible w^hich the English did 
was alarming. 

The phantom forms drew nearer, and were 
almost among them when they broke into a blaze 
from water-line to truck, and the two fleets w^ere 
seen by the lurid hght of the conflagration; the 
anchorage, the walls and window^s of Calais, and 
the sea shining red far as eye could reach, 
as if the ocean itself was burning. Among the 
dangers which they might have to encoimter, 
English fireworks had been especially dreaded by 
the Spaniards. Fire ships — a fit device of heretics 
— had worked havoc among the Spanish troops, 
when the bridge was blown up, at Antwerp. They 
imagined that similar infernal machines were 
approaching the Armada. A capable commandei* 
would have sent a few launches to grapple the 
burning hulks, which of course were now deserted, 
and tow them out of harm's way. Spanish sailors 
were not cowards, and would not have flinched 
from duty because it might be dangerous ; but the 
Duke and Diego Florez lost their heads again. A 
signal gun from the San Martin ordered the whole 
fleet to slip their cables and stand out to sea. 

Orders given in panic are doubly unwise, for 
they spread the terror in which they originate. 
The danger from the fire ships was chiefly from 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 221 

the effect on the imagination, for they appear to 
have drifted by and done no real injury. And it 
speaks well for the seamanship and courage of the 
Spaniards that they were able, crowded together as 
they were, at midnight and in sudden alarm to set 
their canvas and clear out without running into 
one another. They buoyed their cables, expecting 
to return for them at daylight, and with only a 
single accident, to be mentioned directly, they 
executed successfully a really difficult manoeuvre. 

The Duke was deUghted with himself. The 
fire ships burnt harmlessly out. He had baffled 
the inventions of the endemoniada gente. He 
brought up a league outside the harbour, and 
supposed that the whole Armada had done the 
same. Unluckily for himself, he found it at daylight 
divided into two bodies. The San Martin with 
forty of the best appointed of the galleons were 
riding together at their anchors. The rest, two- 
thirds of the whole, having no second anchors 
ready, and inexperienced in Channel tides and 
currents, had been lying to. The west wind was 
blo^\^ng up. Without seeing where they were 
going they had drifted to leeward, and were two 
leagues off, towards GraveUnes, dangerously near 
the shore. The Duke was too ignorant to realise 
the full peril of his situation. He signalled to 
them to return and rejoin him. As the wind and 
tide stood it was impossible. He proposed to 
follow them. The pilots told him that if he did 



222 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

the whole fleet might be lost on the banks. 
Towards the land the look of things was not more 
encouraging. 

One accident only had happened the night 
before. The Capitana galleass, with Don Hugo de 
Mon5ada and eight hundred men on board, had 
fouled her helm in a cable in getting under way 
and had become unmanageable. The galley slaves 
disobeyed orders, or else Don Hugo was as incom- 
petent as his commander-in-chief. The galleass 
had gone on the sands, and as the tide ebbed had 
fallen over on her side. Howard, seeing her con- 
dition, had followed her in the ArJc with four or 
five other of the Queen's ships, and was furiously 
attacking her with his boats, careless of neutrality 
laws. Howard's theory was, as he said, to pluck 
the feathers one by one from the Spaniard's wing, 
and here was a feather worth picking up. The 
galleass was the most splendid vessel of her kind 
afloat, Don Hugo one of the greatest of Spanish 
grandees. 

Howard was making a double mistake. He 
took the galleass at last, after three hours' fighting. 
Don Hugo was killed by a musket ball. The 
vessel was plundered, and Howard's men took 
possession, meaning to carry her away when the 
tide rose. The French authorities ordered him off, 
threatening to fire upon him ; and after wasting the 
forenoon, he was obliged at last to leave her where 
she lay. Worse than this, he had lost • three 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 225 

precious hours, and had lost along with them, in 
the opinion of the Prince of Parma, the honours of 
the great day. 

Drake and Hawkins knew better than to w^aste 
time plucking single feathers. The fire ships had 
been more effective than they could have dared to 
hope. The enemy was broken up. The Duke was 
shorn of half his strength, and the Lord had de- 
livered him into their hand. He had got under 
w^ay, still signalling wildly, and uncertain in w^hich 
direction to turn. His uncertainties w^ere ended 
for him by seeing Drake bearing down upon him 
with the whole English fleet, save those which were 
loitering about the galleass. The English had now 
the advantage of numbers. The superiority of 
their guns he knew^ already, and their greater 
speed allowed him no hope to escape a battle. 
Forty ships alone were left to him to defend the 
banner of the crusade and the honour of Castile ; 
but those forty were the largest and the most power- 
fully armed and manned that he had, and on board 
them w^ere Oquendo, De Leyva, Eecalde, and 
Bretandona, the best officers in the Spanish navy 
next to the lost Don Pedro. 

It was now or never for England. The scene 
of the action which was to decide the future of 
Europe was between Calais and Dunkirk, a few 
miles off shore, and within sight of Parma's camp. 
There was no more manoeuvring for the weather- 
gage, no more fighting at long range. Drake 



224 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

dashed straight upon his prey as the falcon stoops 
upon its quarry. A chance had fallen to him 
which might never return ; not for the vain 
distinction of carrying prizes into English ports, 
not for the ray of honour which would fall on him 
if he could carry off the sacred banner itself and 
hang it in the Abbey at Westminster, but a chance 
so to handle the Annada that it should never be 
seen again in EngHsh waters, and deal such a blow 
on PhiUp that the Spanish Empire should reel with 
it. The English ships had the same superiority 
over the galleons which steamers have now over 
sailing vessels. They had twice the speed; they 
could he two points nearer to the wind. Sweeping 
round them at cable's length, crowding them in 
one upon the other, yet never once giving them a 
chance to grapple, they hurled in their cataracts of 
round shot. Short as was the powder supply, there 
was no sparing it that morning. The hours went 
on, and still the battle raged, if battle it could 
be called where the blows were all dealt on one 
side and the suffering was all on the other. Never 
on sea or land did the Spaniards show themselves 
worthier of their great name than on that day. 
But from the first they could do nothing. It .was 
said afterwards in Spain that the Duke showed the 
white feather, that he charged his pilot to keep 
him out of harm's way, that he shut himself up in 
his cabin, buried in woolpacks, and so on. The 
Duke had faults enough, but poltroonery was not 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 225 

one of them. He, who till he entered the English 
Channel had never been in action on sea or land, 
found himself, as he said, in the midst of the most 
furious engagement recorded in the history of the 
world. As to being out of harm's way, the 
standard at his masthead drew the hottest of the 
fire upon him. The San Martin's timbers were of 
oak and a foot thick, but the shot, he said, went 
through them enough to shatter a rock. Her deck 
was a slaughterhouse ; half his company were 
killed or wounded, and no more would have been 
heard or seen of the San Martin or her commander 
had not Oquendo and De Leyva pushed in to the 
rescue and enabled him to creep away under their 
cover. He himself saw nothing more of the action 
after this. The smoke, he said, was so thick that 
he could make out nothing, even from his mast- 
head. But all round it was but a repetition of the 
same scene. The Spanish shot flew high, as before, 
above the low English hulls, and they were them- 
selves helpless butts to the English guns. And it 
is noticeable and supremely creditable to them that 
not a single galleon struck her colours. One of 
them, after a long duel with an Enghshman, was. 
on the point of sinking. An English officer, 
admiring the courage which the Spaniards had 
shown, ran out upon his bowsprit, told them that 
they had done all which became men, and urged 
them to surrender and save their lives. For 
answer they cursed the English as cowards and 

Q 



226 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

chickens because they refused to close- The 
oflBcer was shot. His fall brought a last broadside 
on them, which finished the work. They went 
down, and the water closed over them. Rather 
death to the soldiers of the Cross than surrender to 
a heretic. 

The deadly hail rained on. In some ships blood 
was seen streaming out of the scupper-holes. Yet 
there was no yielding; all ranks showed equal 
heroism. The priests went up and down in the 
midst of the carnage, holding the crucifix before 
the eyes of the dying. At midday Howard came 
up to claim a second share in a victory which was 
no longer doubtful. Towards the afternoon the 
Spanish fire slackened. Their powder was gone, 
and they could make no return to the cannonade 
which was still overwhelming them. They ad- 
mitted freely afterwards that if the attack had 
been continued but two hours more they must all 
have struck or gone ashore. But the English 
magazines were empty also ; the last cartridge 
was shot away, and the battle ended from mere 
inability to keep it up. It had been fought on both 
sides with peculiar determination. In the English 
there was the accumulated resentment of thirty 
years of menace to their country and their creed, 
with the enemy in tangible shape at last to be 
caught and grappled with; in the Spanish, the 
sense that if their cause had not brought them 
the help they looked for from above, the honom* 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 227 

and faith of Castile should not suffer in their 
hands. 

It was over. The EngUsh drew off, regretting 
that their thrifty mistress had Hmited their means 
of fighting for her, and so obhged them to leave 
their work half done. When the cannon ceased 
the wind rose, the smoke rolled away, and in the 
level light of the sunset they could see the results 
of the action. 

A galleon in Eecalde's squadron was sinking 
ynth all hands. The San Philip and the San 
Matteo were drifting dismasted towards the Dutch 
coast, where they were afterwards wrecked. Those 
which were left with canvas still showing were 
crawling slowly after their comrades who had not 
been engaged, the spars and rigging so cut up that 
they could scarce bear their sails. The loss of life 
could only be conjectured, but it had been obviously 
terrible. The nor'-wester was blowing up and was 
pressing the wounded ships upon the shoals, from 
which, if it held, it seemed impossible in their 
crippled state they would be able to work off. 

In this condition Drake left them for the night, 
not to rest, but from any quarter to collect, if he 
could, more food and powder. The snake had been 
scotched, but not killed. More than half the great 
fleet were far away, untouched by shot, perhaps 
able to fight a second battle if they recovered heart. 
To follow, to drive them on the banks if the wind 
held, or into the North Sea, anywhere so that he 

Q 2 



228 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

left them no chance of joining hands with Parma 
again, and to use the time before they had rallied 
from his blows, that was the present necessity. His 
own poor fellows were famished and in rags ; but 
neither he nor they had leisure to think of them- 
selves. There was but one thought in the whole 
of them, to be again in chase of the flying foe. 
Howard was resolute as Drake. All that was 
possible was swiftly done. Seymour and the 
Thames squadron were to stay in the Straits and 
watch Parma. From every attainable source food 
and powder were collected for the rest — far short in 
both ways of what ought to have been, but, as Drake 
said, * we were resolved to put on a brag and go on 
as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the admiral 
and he were again off on the chase. 

The brag was unneeded. What man could do 
had been done, and the rest was left to the ele- 
ments. Never again could Spanish seamen be 
brought to face the EngUsh guns with Medina 
Sidonia to lead them. They had a fool at their 
head. The Invisible Powers in whom they had 
been taught to trust had deserted them. Their 
confidence was gone and their spirit broken. 
Drearily the morning broke on the Duke and his 
consorts the day after the battle. The Armada had 
collected in the night. The nor'-wester had fresh- 
ened to a gale, and they were labouring heavily 
along, making fatal leeway towards the shoals. 

It was St. Lawrence's Day, PhiUp's patron 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 229 

saint, whose shoulder-bone he had lately added to 
the treasures of the Escurial ; but St. Lawrence 
was as heedless as St. Dominic. The Sail Martin 
had but six fathoms under her. Those nearer to 
the land signalled five, and right before them they 
<30uld see the brown foam of the breakers curling 
over the sands, while on their weather-beam, a mile 
distant and clinging to them like the shadow of 
death, were the English ships which had pursued 
them from Plymouth like the dogs of the Furies. 
The Spanish sailors and soldiers had been without 
food since the evening when they anchored at 
Calais. All Sunday they had been at work, no rest 
allowed them to eat. On the Sunday night they 
had been stirred out of their sleep by the fire ships. 
Monday they had been fighting, and Monday night 
<)ommitting their dead to the sea. Now they 
seemed advancing directly upon inevitable destruc- 
tion. As the wind stood there was still room for 
them to wear and thus escape the banks, but they 
would then have to face the enemy, who seemed 
only refraining from attacking them because while 
they continued on their present course the winds 
and waves would finish the work without help from 
man. Kecalde, De Leyva, Oquendo, and other 
officers were sent for to the San Martin to consult. 
Oquendo came last. ' Ah, Seiior Oquendo,' said the 
Duke as the heroic Biscay an stepped on board, * que 
haremos ? ' (what shall we do ?) * Let your Ex- 
-cellency bid load the guns again,' was Oquendo's 



230 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

gallant answer. It could not be. De Leyva him- 
self said that the men would not fight the Enghsh 
again. Florez advised surrender. The Duke 
wavered. It was said that a boat was actually 
lowered to go ofi to Howard and make terms, and 
that Oquendo swore that if the boat left the San 
Martin on such an errand he would fling Florez 
into the sea. Oquendo's advice would have, per- 
haps, been the safest if the Duke could have taken 
it. There were still seventy ships in the Armada 
little hurt. The Enghsh were ^ bragging,' as Drake 
said, and in no condition themselves for another 
serious engagement. But the temper of the entire 
fleet made a courageous course impossible. There 
was but one Oquendo. Disciphne was gone. The 
soldiers in their desperation had taken the com- 
mand out of the hands of the seamen. Officers 
and men alike abandoned hope, and, with no human 
prospect of salvation left to them, they flung them- 
selves on their knees upon the decks and prayed the 
Almighty to have pity on them. But two weeks 
were gone since they had knelt on those same 
decks on the first sight of the Enghsh shore to 
thank Him for having brought them so far on an 
enterprise so glorious. Two weeks ; and what 
weeks ! Wrecked, torn by cannon shot, ten thou- 
sand of them dead or dying — for this was the 
estimated loss by battle — the survivors could now 
but pray to be delivered from a miserable death by 
the elements. In cyclones the wind often changes. 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 231 

suddenly back from north-west to west, from west 
to south. At that moment, as if in answer to their 
petition, one of these sudden shifts of wind saved 
them from the innnediate peril. The gale backed 
round to S.S.W., and ceased to press them on the 
shoals. They could ease their sheets, draw off 
into open water, and steer a course up the middle 
of the North Sea. 

So only that they went north, Drake was con- 
tent to leave them unmolested. Once away into 
the high latitudes they might go where they would. 
Neither Howard nor he, in the low state of their 
own magazines, desired any unnecessary fighting. 
If the Armada turned back they must close mth it. 
If it held its present course they must follow it till 
they could be assured it would communicate no 
more for that summer with the Prince of Parma. 
Drake thought they would perhaps make for the 
Baltic or some port in Norway. They would meet 
no hospitable reception from either Swedes or 
Danes, but they would probably try. One only 
imminent danger remained to be provided against. 
If they turned into the Forth, it was still possible 
for the Spaniards to redeem their defeat, and even 
yet shake Elizabeth's throne. Among the many 
plans which had been formed for the invasion of 
England, a landing in Scotland had long been the 
favourite. Guise had always preferred Scotland 
when it was intended that Guise should be the 
leader. Santa Cruz had been in close correspon- 



232 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

dence with Guise on this very subject, and many 
officers in the Armada must have been acquainted 
with Santa Cruz's views. The Scotch Cathoho 
nobles were still savage at Mary Stuart's execution, 
and had the Armada anchored in Leith Eoads with 
twenty thousand men, half a million ducats, and a 
Santa Cruz at its head, it might have kindled a 
blaze at that moment from John o' Groat's Land 
to the Border, 

But no such purpose occurred to the Duke of 
Medina Sidonia. He probably knew nothing at all 
of Scotland or its parties. Among the many de- 
ficiencies which he had pleaded to Philip as un- 
fitting him for the command, he had said that Santa 
Cruz had acquaintances among the Enghsh and 
Scotch peers. He had himself none. The small 
information which he had of anything did not go 
beyond his orange gardens and his tunny fishing. 
His chief merit was that he was conscious of his 
incapacity ; and, detesting a service into which he 
had been fooled by a hysterical nun, his only 
anxiety was to carry home the still considerable 
fleet which had been trusted to him without further 
loss. Beyond Scotland and the Scotch isles there 
was the open ocean, and in the open ocean there 
were no sandbanks and no English guns. Thus, 
with all sail set he went on before the wind. Drake 
and Howard attended him till they had seen him 
past the Forth, and knew then that there was no 
more to fear. It was time to see to the wants of 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 233 

their own poor fellows, who had endured so patiently 
and fought so magnificently. On the 13th of August 
they saw the last of the Armada, turned back, and 
made their way to the Thames. 

But the story has yet to be told of the final fate 
of the great ' enterprise of England ' (the ' empresa 
de Inglaterra '), the object of so many prayers, on 
which the hopes of the CathoHc world had been so 
long and passionately fixed. It had been osten- 
tatiously a religious crusade. The preparations had 
been attended with pecuhar solemnities. In the 
eyes of the faithful it was to be the execution of 
Divine justice on a wicked princess and a wicked 
people. In the eyes of millions whose convictions 
were less decided it was an appeal to God's judg- 
ment to decide between the Eeformation and the 
Pope. There was an appropriateness, therefore, 
if due to accident, that other causes besides the 
action of man should have combined in its over- 
throw. 

The Spaniards were experienced sailors ; a voy- 
age round the Orkneys and round Ireland to Spain 
might be tedious, but at that season of the year 
need not have seemed either dangerous or difiicult. 
On inquiry, however, it was found that the con- 
dition of the fleet was seriously alarming. The 
provisions placed on board at Lisbon had been found 
unfit for food, and almost all had been thrown into 
the sea. The fresh stores taken in at Corunna had 
been consumed, and it was found that at the present 



234 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

rate there would be nothing left in a fortnight. 
Worse than all, the water-casks refilled there had 
been carelessly stowed. They had been shot 
through in the fighting and were empty ; while of 
clothing or other comforts for the cold regions which 
they were entering no thought had been taken. 
The mules and horses w^ere flung overboard, and 
Scotch smacks, which had followed the retreat- 
ing fleet, reported that they had sailed for miles 
through floating carcases. 

The rations w^ere reduced for each man to a 
daily half-pound of biscuit, a pint of water, and a 
pint of vdne. Thus, sick and hungry, the wounded 
left to the care of a medical ofiicer, who went from 
ship to ship, the subjects of so many prayers were 
left to encounter the climate of the North Atlantic. 
The Duke blamed all but himself ; he hanged one 
poor captain for neglect of orders, and would have 
hanged another had he dared; but his authority 
was gone. They passed the Orkneys in a single 
body. They then parted, it was said in a fog ; but 
each commander had to look out for himself and his 
men. In many ships water must be had somewhere, 
or they would die. The Sail Martin^ with sixty 
consorts, went north to the sixtieth parallel. From 
that height the pilots promised to take them down 
clear of the coast. The wind still clung to the west, 
each day blowing harder than the last. When they 
braced round to it their wounded spars gave way. 
Their rigging parted. With the greatest difl&culty 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 235 

they made at last sufficient offing, and rolled down 
somehow out of sight of land, dipping their yards in 
the enormous seas. Of the rest, one or two went 
down among the Western Isles and became wrecks 
there, their crews, or part of them, making their 
way through Scotland to Flanders. Others went 
north to Shetland or the Faroe Islands. Between 
thirty and forty were tempted in upon the Irish 
coasts. There were Irishmen in the fleet, who must 
have told them that they would find the water 
there for which they were perishing, safe harbours, 
and a friendly Catholic people ; and they found 
either harbours which they could not reach or sea- 
washed sands and reefs. They were all wrecked at 
various places between Donegal and the Blaskets. 
Something like eight thousand half-drowned 
wretches struggled on shore alive. Many were 
gentlemen, richly dressed, with velvet coats, gold 
chains, and rings. The common sailors and soldiers 
had been paid their wages before they started, and 
each had a bag of ducats lashed to his waist when 
he landed through the surf. The wild Irish of the 
coast, tempted by the booty, knocked unknown 
numbers of them on the head with their battle- 
axes, or stripped them naked and left them to die 
of the cold. On one long sand strip in Sligo an 
English officer counted eleven hundred bodies, and 
he heard that there were as many more a few miles 
distant. 

The better-educated of the Ulster chiefs, the 



236 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

O'Eourke and O'Donnell, hurried down to stop the 
butchery and spare Ireland the shame of murdering 
helpless Catholic friends. Many — how many can- 
not be said — found protection in their castles. But 
even so it seeme,d as if some inexorable fate pursued 
all who had sailed in that doomed expedition. 
Alonzo de Leyva, with half a hundred young 
Spanish nobles of high rank who were under his 
special charge, made his way in a galleass into 
Killibeg. He was himself disabled in landing. 
O'Donnell received and took care of him and his 
companions. After remaining in O'Donnell's castle 
for a month he recovered. The weather appeared 
to mend. The galleass was patched up, and De 
Leyva ventured an attempt to make his way in her 
to Scotland. He had passed the worst danger, and 
Scotland was almost in sight ; but fate would have 
its victims. The galleass struck a rock off Dunluce 
and went to pieces, and Don Alonzo and the 
princely youths who had sailed with him were 
washed ashore all dead, to find an unmarked grave 
in Antrim. 

Most pitiful of all was the fate of those who fell 
into the hands of the English garrisons in Galway 
and Mayo. Galleons had found their way into 
Galway Bay — one of them had reached Galway 
itself — the crews half dead with famine and 
offering a cask of wine for a cask of water. The 
Galway townsmen were human, and tried to feed 
^nd care for them. Most were too far gone to be 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 237 

revived, and died of exhaustion. Some might have 
recovered, but recovered they would be a danger to 
the State. The English in the West of Ireland 
were but a handful in the midst of a sullen, half- 
conquered population. The ashes of the Desmond 
rebellion were still smoking, and Dr. Sanders and 
his Legatine Commission were fresh in immediate 
memory. The defeat of the Armada in the 
Channel could only have been vaguely heard of. 
All that English officers could have accurately 
known must have been that an enormous expedi- 
tion had been sent to England by Philip to restore 
the Pope ; and Spaniards, they found, were landing 
in thousands in the midst of them with arms and 
money; distressed for the moment, but sure, if 
allowed time to get their strength again, to set 
Connaught in a blaze. They had no fortresses to 
hold so many prisoners, no means of feeding them, 
no men to spare to escort them to Dublin. They 
were responsible to the Queen's Government for 
the safety of the country. The Spaniards had not 
come on any errand of mercy to her or hers. The 
stern order went out to kill them all wherever they 
might be found, and two thousand or more were 
shot, hanged, or put to the sword. Dreadful ! 
Yes, but war itself is dreadful and has its own 
necessities. 

The sixty ships which had followed the San 
Martin succeeded at last in getting round Cape 
Clear, but in a condition scarcely less miserable 



238 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

than that of their companions who had perished 
in Ireland. Half their companies died — died 
of untended wounds, hunger, thirst, and famine 
fever. The survivors were moving skeletons, more 
shadows and ghosts than living men, with scarce 
strength left them to draw a rope or handle a 
tiller. In some ships there was no water for 
fourteen days. The weather in the lower latitudes 
lost part of its violence, or not one of them would 
have seen Spain again. As it was they drifted on 
outside Scilly and into the Bay of Biscay, and in 
the second week in September they dropped in one 
by one. Kecalde, with better success than the 
rest, made Corunna. The Duke, not knowing 
where he was, found himself in sight of Corunna 
also. The crew of the San Martin were prostrate, 
and could not work her in. They signalled foy 
help, but none came, and they dropped away to 
leeward to Bilbao. Oquendo had fallen off still 
farther to Santander, and the rest of the sixty 
arrived in the following days at one or other of the 
Biscay ports. On board them, of the thirty 
thousand who had left those shores but two 
months before in high hope and passionate en- 
thusiasm, nine thousand only came back aUve — ^if 
alive they could be called. It is touching to read 
in a letter from Bilbao of their joy at warm Spanish 
sun, the sight of the grapes on the white walls, 
and the taste of fresh home bread and water again. 
But it came too late to save them, and those 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 239 

whose bodies might have rallied died of broken 
hearts and disappointed dreams. Santa Cruz's old 
companions could not survive the ruin of the 
Spanish navy. Eecalde died two days after he 
landed at Bilbao. Santander was Oquendo's home. 
He had a wife and children there, but he refused 
to see them, turned his face to the wall, and died 
too. The common seamen and soldiers were too 
weak to help themselves. They had to be left on 
board the poisoned ships till hospitals could be 
prepared to take them in. The authorities of 
Church and State did all that men could do ; but 
the case was past help, and before September 
was out all but a few hundred needed no further 
care. 

Philip, it must be said for him, spared nothing 
to relieve the misery. The widows and orphans 
were pensioned by the State. The stroke which 
had fallen was received with a dignified submission 
to the inscrutable purposes of Heaven. Diego 
Florez escaped with a brief imprisonment at Burgos. 
None else were punished for faults which lay 
chiefly in the King's own presumption in imagining 
himself the instrument of Providence. 

The Duke thought himself more sinned 
against than sinning. He did not die, like 
Eecalde or Oquendo, seeing no occasion for it. He 
flung down his command and retired to his 
palace at St. Lucan ; and so far was Phihp from 
resenting the loss of the Armada on its commander, 



240 ENGLISH SEAMEN 

that he continued him in his governorship of Cadiz> 
where Essex found him seven years later, and 
where he ran from Essex as he had run from 
Drake. 

The Spaniards made no attempt to conceal the 
greatness of their defeat. Unwdlling to allow that 
the Upper Powers had been against them, they set 
it frankly dowTi to the superior fighting powers of 
the English. 

The English themselves, the Prince of Parma 
said, were modest in their victory. They thought 
little of their own gallantry. To them the defeat 
and destruction of the Spanish fleet was a declara- 
tion of the Almighty in the cause of their country 
and the Protestant faith. Both sides had appealed 
to Heaven, and Heaven had spoken. 

It was the turn of the tide. The wave of the 
reconquest of the Netherlands ebbed from that 
moment. Parma took no more towns from the 
Hollanders. The Catholic peers and gentlemen of 
England, who had held aloof from the Established 
Church, waiting ad illud tempus for a reUgious 
revolution, accepted the verdict of Providence. 
They discovered that in Anglicanism they could 
keep the faith of their fathers, yet remain in com- 
munion with their Protestant fellow-countrjmien, 
use the same liturgy, and pray in the same temples. 
For the first time since Elizabeth's father broke 
the bonds of Rome the English became a united 
nation, joined in loyal enthusiasm for the Queen, 



DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 241 

and were satisfied that thenceforward no Itahan 
priest should tithe or toll in her dominions. 

But all that, and all that* went with it, the 
passing from Spain to England of the sceptre of 
the seas, must be left to other lectures, or other 
lecturers who have more years before them than I. 
My own theme has been the poor Protestant 
adventurers who fought through that perilous week 
in the English Channel and saved their country 
and their country's liberty. 



rJllNTED IJY 
SrO I I 1SW00D13 AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARB 

LONDON 



11